Seek, and You Will Find
by Kadrian
Summary: When Alex was dropped into their life like a silent bomb, K-Unit had no idea of the trainwrecks that came with the brilliant young agent.
1. Chapter 1

A.N.: Okay, now I'm really salty because FF-net kills my word count. I swear this was 10k but they keep on telling me it's only 9k. Nuu, where did my words go? Or maybe it's my word doc app malfunctioning but that's just _not_ nice! So I'm just going to write a bunch of b*llshit here and take up words. I know, I used an asterisk for the swear word yet I swear so much in my writing, but please, that's Alex and Wolf talking. It's just unreasonable for soldiers and teenagers to _not_ swear. At least I don't make sexual innuendos... Anyways, I'm so sorry for not updating my chapter stories and instead of working on this really long piece of work (that will have a chapter two) under the claim that I was bored and had a short writer's block. Yes, I did, I did have a writer's block and writing H/C and platonic friendships have always been a fav. past time of mine, which is why this was born, unfortunately. So after like three hours of mindless writing, and tweaking, and not bothering to check my grammar, I present to you another one of my Alex + K-Unit(mainly Wolf) platonic friendship bonding. Don't worry, I did throw this into Grammarly-which trust me, isn't always useful. They bend your words, seriously, and make it really not what you mean. If I correct every single thing using Grammarly and accept their interpretation of it, this story will be more of a trainwreck (than it already is). Also, summer's in another month for me, like most schools, so I certainly hope to finish my other stories (ha, what a joke) before next year starts and I'll be buried under more paperwork and exams. I'm already pushing writing as late night and early morning activity and yet I'm forever procrastinating and, yes, forever being random and taking up unnecessary space with mindless rants like what I'm doing right now. But it certainly feels good.

I will stop now, even though I'm still 300 short but I suppose I should be editing my doc and add more words to the story instead of ranting. But it's too late, and my brain's dead, and I must really start on my essay.

* * *

Their relationship was, in one word, rocky. Wolf hadn't completely accepted Alex as an MI6 agent even after two years of partnership between the young man and K-Unit. Mrs. Jones seemed to have a soft spot for Alex, deeming K-Unit as the unit for rescue whenever Alex was in trouble-which usually turned out to be a false alarm and always ended up with them clapping Alex on the shoulder for another job well done in a pub with drinks on Eagle.

Truth be told, it wasn't that he had something against Alex personally. He just disliked him. Alex was everything that he wasn't, and that was a good thing because Wolf never had to feel roaring fires all around him in an attempt to rush back into a burning building, he never had to jump, unaided and without any harness, down tall buildings and almost, almost, missing the soft landing beneath, and he certainly never had to calmly disarm a mentally unstable man while having a gun pointed point-blank at his left eye.

But in the end, Alex was still a little brother than K-Unit never had. Too young and far too… _selfless_ to be serving the country. God knew how many times Wolf had felt his hands curled into fists as he watched the dauntless jobs that the young agent scaled across as if it was nothing more than a stroll in a park. After a while, however, Wolf felt himself relaxed and joined in the amused smiles of the rest of his unit as they waited outside for Alex to come out, occasionally catching his nimble form free-falling from the roof to the balcony four stories below or the delighted but slightly out-of-breath yell to start up the engine from the young man as Alex sped toward them in a stolen motorcycle with gun fires and engines howling like storm behind him.

He would find himself occasionally watching Alex, unable to fathom nor understand how exactly he managed to do what he did and still end up being that cheerful bright ball of light he was, as Eagle put it. Wolf would rather die by Eagle's bad puns and jokes than to admit it, but to a certain degree, he was fond of the young man. Someday, he had certainly wondered about working with the young man closer and learning all about his seemingly infinite lives because heaven knew he could use more lives.

It had been a universal truth to them now. Whatever it was that Alex walked himself in, he would walk out of it unscathed. The worst damages he had were merely small graze wounds and tattered uniform that Alex seemed to like to bitch about despite his bandaged arm.

"You're awfully quiet," Alex nudged him, arching an eyebrow as Wolf snapped back to attention, "Something wrong?"

Alex still smelled heavily of hospital and antiseptics and Wolf wrinkled his nose in disgust, "Get your sprite breath out of my face."

Eagle heard it, unfortunately, and dropped his arm unceremoniously across Wolf's shoulder, "Whassup, Wolfie? I hope you're not hurting Cubby-kin again. Last time you nearly sent him tumbling down the stairs."

"That was his own fault," Wolf glared at the same time that Alex shot back, "Stop calling me that!"

Sometimes, Wolf forgot just how young Alex was. Barely seventeen, barely of age. There were times when he wished to storm into Mrs. Jones office, hold a gun to her head, and demand that Alex be released from service. He just didn't have the nerves.

"When are you getting shipped out again?" Fox came over to their table, victory flushed on his face from the poker game against the now-seething players a few tables down, "I swear to god, you seem to be the only active agents nowadays."

"Thought you loved the thrill," Alex grinned as he slid out of his seat and walked up to Fox, clapping him on the shoulder, "You know, jumping down to oil drills, all that fun, eh?"

"Not for me, mate," Fox returned the grin, ruffling Alex's hair in affection that nearly sent Alex tipping into the table and the offended young man jabbed Fox on the side rather aggressively.

Wolf watched them with exasperation as Fox chased Alex around the bar and Alex, with last minute evasion, narrowly missed the servant with his black tray high with glass bottles, empty and full. He noticed with slight dismay the limp in Alex's right leg. The crash hadn't left the elite agent completely unscathed. If truth be told, Alex seemed to be losing attention lately. Accidents were more frequent in his last few missions and he was rather aloof in the short recovery weeks after the missions.

"Cub," Wolf caught the agent's attention and the brilliant smile was turned his way as the agent smartly evaded Fox once again, "Have you fought about quitting 6?"

Alex shrugged as he joined Wolf at the table, Fox sliding into the seat next to him and ordered another round of beers but sprite for Alex, "No, not really."

Eagle and Snake were having a rather heated argument about the cutting and slicing a deck of cards that Wolf tuned out, solely focusing on the agent in front of him, "Why not? You still have a long life ahead of you."

"I just never really considered it," Once again, the shrug. The drinks came and Alex took a sip of his soda, making a face as the carbon dioxide bubbling up interrupted the swallowing, "It's relaxing, in a way."

It made Wolf angry, "Throwing away your life is relaxing?"

"No," Alex wasn't getting his point, "I mean. It's my life now. Besides, I'm content with it."

"If you have the chance, will you walk away?"

"No."

"No?" Wolf's eyes flashed in anger, "Why not? Do you enjoy dying? Is this all a game to you? Some sort of sick dare for adrenaline? To show-off?"

"But where can I walk to?" Alex frowned, turning toward him. Ben had drifted off to Snake and Eagle, demanding that they stop cheating in their game, "It's not like I have anywhere to go."

"Foster Care," Wolf knew that the instant those words were out, they were wrong and he couldn't take it back anymore. Instead, he plowed on, "They will find someone, a good family, for you. You don't have to keep doing all these dirty government works anymore."

"Or I can keep doing what I do the best and not worry about shitty Foster Care systems," Alex snapped perhaps a little heatedly but he kept his tone down to not alarm the three other occupants of their table, "Listen, Wolf, I don't care what you think of me, I don't care if you hate me, I just want you to stop putting your nose where it doesn't belong."

"I have every right to know about K-Unit's partner-agent," Wolf growled, "You're reckless, Cub. You throw yourself down buildings, you run toward bullets, and you'd let yourself drift down Niagara Falls if it happens to be in your way. I'm half-tempted to throw you to see a shrink for suicidal thoughts."

Wolf didn't understand the involuntary shudder that ran through the agent's body and the clenching of his hands around the can, "I'm not suicidal."

"So all the stunts you did for your missions just happened to be the only way out?" Wolf snorted in disbelief, "You're telling me that hanging your life out on a cliff is the only thing you can do?"

" _Yes_ ," Exasperated, Alex glanced at him, "I get things done, don't I?"

"So do the other agents and yet they used more conventional methods. They walk down _stairs_. They run _away_ from guns. They use fucking boats and they secure harnesses before scaling the Shard. They still complete their goddamn missions."

"But they die more often, don't they?" Alex narrowed his eyes slightly, "I'm alive, that's all that matters in the end."

"You're getting lucky," Wolf shot back, gripping his beer tightly and wanting to chug it all down in one gulp but found himself unable to tear his eyes away from Alex's, "You believe you have the rabbit's foot when all the time you're just lucking out."

"Then if I continue getting lucky, I'd be fine, wouldn't I?" Alex crossed his arms, "Besides, it's not luck. It's skill."

Alex just won't get it, Wolf shook his head in irritation. It wasn't about luck, or skills, or anything. It was all about himself in the end. Wolf didn't want to be waiting outside with his unit one day and Alex failing to show up. He didn't want to attend the agent's funeral and see the words 'his luck ran out' engraved on the pedestal. He didn't want to be there when the mission failed. He didn't want to watch Alex _fall_.

"You don't get it, Cub," Wolf gritted his teeth in annoyance, unable to keep his temper in check anymore as it flared up like a candle, "You're not some sort of undying mutant. If you don't stop what you're doing, you _will_ die."

"I know you're worried-"

"I'm not."

"-but I can handle myself," Alex ignored him, "You just have to always be out there with your shiny car door open and gas tank completely filled."

And that was exactly what he found himself doing two months later, his fingers drumming the steering wheel in undisguised anxiety. Alex was late by ten minutes already. He wouldn't worry if it were anybody else but Alex was never late. And not for the first time, Wolf's thoughts turned toward the conversation two months ago back at the bar. What if Alex's luck did run out?

He didn't have time to perturb himself with that budding thought before the passenger side was wrenched open by the late agent, " _Go go go_!"

Wolf didn't need to be told twice before he floored the pedal, hearing the guns kicking up behind them like a hell-storm, much more furious than any missions before. Absently, he wondered if Alex managed to anger the King Godzilla of the den. The rear windshield cracked by the stream of bullets that had forced its way in and Fox yelled for them to duck from the backseat. Alex didn't move and Wolf gave the agent a quick glance before reaching over, pushing the agent down by a forceful press to his head toward the seat while ducking himself but keeping an eye on the road.

They lost them relatively quickly, even before reaching two miles though Wolf supposed the returning fire from his backseat passengers that had resulted in the flipping of two of the chasing cars did most of the jobs. Alex pulled himself upright with difficulties, blood dripping down from his face and his shirt was stained with dark red blood, some patches were dry but the others wet. This was the worse he had ever seen the agent in.

"You look like shit," Wolf commented as Snake immediately leaned forward from the backseat to assess Alex's state, giving a loud swear at the blood, "What the fuck happened?"

"I got shot," Alex replied stiffly as he applied pressure to the wound on his side, "While I was running to the car. Didn't see their patrol guards."

"How bad is it, Snake?" Wolf demanded as Snake handed Alex the pain reliever to suck on that the agent gingerly took, his hands slowed in an attempt to not aggravate the wound.

"The hospital's definitely a must," The soldier said as he pressed a wad of cloth over the wound and directed Alex's hand back over it. Blood began to slowly seep through but not at an alarming pace, "Other than that, I don't see any injuries. Is there anything else, Cub?"

"A few bruises," A loud sigh escaped with the wince of pain as the agent shifted, staining the black seat a shiner red that could only be seen through the reflecting light, "I think that's all."

"So where did it go wrong?" Wolf asked, giving Cub a quick glance before focusing back down the highway, glancing at the mirror every now and then to make sure that they weren't followed. Eagle and Fox were still tensed, their guns ready for anything, but they were slowly relaxing as the chase fell behind in a wide berth.

"Probably when I used the stairs instead of jumping straight down," Alex snorted, his body trembling and Wolf wasn't sure if it was from the rumbling of the engine beneath or from the exertion but the paling and the brief grimace of pain shown through the shutting of his eyes told him that it wasn't good, "Didn't realize stupid building has guards on every stair."

"Still," As Snake sat back momentarily to shift through his kit, Fox took over, clapping Alex briefly on the shoulder, "It was a success, I take it."

Alex tensed, his bleary eyes opening for a moment but he didn't say anything. Fox frowned in worry, "Al?"

"I failed," The muttered words were soft but they heard it all. For a moment, the car was silent and the rumbling of the car against the sand and uneven road grew louder. Then, although pained, Alex split into a grin, "To be awesome."

With his right hand, he gingerly reached into his pocket and retrieved the USB and a few folded sheets of paper, flapping them around triumphantly in his weakened grip but nonetheless the highly amused expression stole away the dark clouds from moments ago, " _Ha_! Gotcha."

"I'm so going to strangle you," Fox ruffled Alex's hair with more force than necessary, causing the agent to lean forward, the prominent grin still on his face but barely suppressed pain flickered over.

"Ow, ow, ow," Alex complained softly as he laughed softly, "Patient here. Patient here. Be gentle."

They got Alex to the hospital in record time even though none of them said anything, they were afraid that the injury was worse than Snake had diagnosed. Alex, after all, wasn't someone who preferred the cuddly caring sentiments and he would only speak of the worst when necessary.

Alex was ordered bed rest for a week by the doctor and a week past, he was on his feet as if nothing happened, still running around without consequences and indulging himself in all the reckless behaviors as before. But, with strange relief, he had toned it down a notch and Wolf took note of the occasional hand that flew to the agent's side at strenuous activities. It wasn't completely healed. Though that didn't stop Alex from joining the rest of K-Unit occasionally in the training range, running exercises and betting against Wolf's shooting abilities-which Wolf realized he often tied against the young agent, sometimes Alex did surpass him, winning him a grand tour of Eagle running around cheering with Alex on his back laughing his head off.

Sometimes, when K-Unit were called off to different assignments and upon return, there was always the slim chance of Alex on break, back from another mission and nursing a whole bowl of ice-cream in his home. Eagle had made a copy of Alex's house key without Alex's consent but it never stopped the bone-tired and fatigued soldiers from trudging into Alex's house late in the afternoon, dumping their bags unceremoniously on the smooth wooden floor before Fox pushing Alex out of his sofa and then they would crash there for the week. Alex never really minded and none of the soldiers mind not spending time at their empty home either. With no steady girlfriends (Snake claimed he had a long-distance relationship going), Alex's home was now their home, in a sense. And strangely and perhaps tad bit awkwardly, it was always Alex who found the distressed members of K-Unit late at night, nursing a cup of coffee and trying hard to forget their mission.

Alex was never the caring type, he never offered to make anyone coffee, he never cooked for anyone and he certainly wasn't the counseling type. Yet whenever Alex was with them, there was a sense of security and righteousness. Which was why Wolf hated the missions that Alex was thrown into. He hated sitting in the young agent's house without the agent. But on top of everything, he hated it when they sent the team in for retrieval because he was never sure if Alex really needed help or not.

Which is why he made sure he was always early in the scheduled location, quietly scanning their surroundings as they adjusted their gears in preparations. In a weird sense, Wolf knew that Alex would always show up, wounded or not. He had never missed any of their rendezvous. They all thought Alex was suicidal: throwing himself into countless mission after Jack's death, risking his life to run into burning buildings, but in the end, he ended up saving people nonetheless. Alex always had a plan, for everything, and sometimes Wolf wondered if Alex simply knew what was going to happen because Wolf certainly did not notice the tent beneath them when they went over the railing.

"You knew!" Wolf accused the young agent whom he had wrapped in a tight grip, hoping that even if he died, the agent would survive the drop, "You fucking knew this was here!"

Alex rolled out of his grip with a nonchalant grin, dropping lightly off the edge of the sinking trampoline-like tent and dusting off his uniform. Yells sounded out from above and Wolf was quick to jump and duck for cover as gunfire ripped through the thin materials where they were only momentarily ago.

"Like I said," Alex arched an eyebrow in silent laughter as they ran under the cover of the trees and bushes, "I know what I'm doing. Besides, what are you doing here?"

They ducked behind the durasteels of the metal barrels and bullets rocketed off the surface in loud pings, "You were late. We were supposed to meet an hour ago."

Alex paused, "Oh," He checked his watch, "I thought it was five, not two."

Bristling, Wolf reached over and, with more force than necessary, pushed Alex's head toward the ground sharply but not too sharp that the agent's thick skull would connect with the hard concrete, "Bloody hell! That's all you've got to say?"

"Sorry, sorry," Alex winced then peeked over the edge. A loose stream nearly found their mark if Wolf hadn't pulled him immediately back down, "Let's get out of here."

"That's the most sensible thing you've said in three months," Wolf grunted as he pulled himself to a short crouch, peering through the small crack between the containers to make sure that they were as clear as possible.

Alex protested as he followed suit, "I haven't _seen_ you in three months."

"Exactly."

"That's not fair."

"Life's not fair," Wolf, grinning, grabbed Alex by his arm and lugged him backward. Then they began running again, "C'mon."

While Alex did not have the physique of a soldier, he had the mental endurance of one. Something in the young man seemed to be screaming at him to never give up and give everything his very best, or die trying. Although Wolf sometimes appreciated the notion, he disliked the latter half. Alex should learn when he should quit instead of 'die trying'. Not everything was meant to be accomplished, not every mission was meant to be a success. Not that _that_ had ever stopped Alex before. That kid could be one hell of a kamikaze.

Especially after his caretaker Jack's death. From what he had gathered, rather limited, to be honest, Jack Starbright's death had ripped the young agent apart inside out. A few months later was when Mrs. Jones decided to send the young man out for a quick easy mission, adrenaline to take things off his mind and presumably for his mind relax for the first time in a long while. What she didn't take into account for was that while Alex could restrain himself, barely, from seeking revenge, the young agent simply could not rest his mind. Even a simple mission turned disastrous when Alex accidentally fell down a slope. It would have been funny if only the kid wasn't barely alive at the bottom, hanging by whatever miracle when K-Unit finally found him upon orders from Mrs. Jones.

As the unspoken partnership between K-Unit and Alex grew over the years, they began to understand Alex better. If there was one thing they learned above everything, it was to never distract Alex when he was doing something important. Heaven knew the state of their latest Thanksgiving turkey disaster. The whole house smelled like burnt turkey for a whole entire week and Eagle swore, tentatively, to never ever engage Alex in troubling conversations such as his family again.

Everything in the end, however, came back to Alex's inattention lately. First, it was rather subtle, the young agent tripping over a large boulder on a training exercise that was the source of Eagle's laughter for the whole entire week. Then when it happened again, Alex nearly falling off the ropes on his way up the cliff, Wolf was beginning to have doubts. Luckily, the harnesses, although rather loose as a result of Alex's inattention while attaching, stopped the drop before the young agent could become another casualty.

"...because Wolf is the stupidest person in the world," The use of his code name pulled him out of his thoughts, glaring with irritation at the highly amused Eagle who had undoubtedly been sprouting old training camp stories about him.

"Use your brain for something more useful," Wolf grunted as he turned, taking notice of the young agent heading to their table for having to step out momentarily ago to take a call.

Alex's face looked troubled as he neared, a frown twisting his bright features and his mind was clearly anywhere but here. Which was not surprising as he walked right into one of the passing servants. Bottles and glass flew everywhere upon the crash and the soldiers were on their feet, alarmed.

"Watch where the fuck you're walking, kid," The servant pulled himself up and grabbed Alex by his collar harshly, "What are you, _two_?"

"I'm sorry, man," Alex opened his mouth, a pained apologetic expression evident on his face in embarrassment to his inattention, "I…I'll pay you back. I'll pay for the losses."

"Oh you think you're such a rich brat," The servant sneered, leaning uncomfortably close and Wolf found himself moving a step forward before Alex's eyes flashed in warning at him. Alex had never been a fan of letting someone else fight his battles, "You kids just love waving your money around as if you can buy everything. Guess what? Money ain't buying everything."

"What can I do?" Alex said quietly and the earnest in his voice made Wolf want to punch the fucking stupid servant guy who clearly did not deserve Alex's apology.

The man finally released his hold on Alex and his hands dropped to his side, "Well you see, kid. I've had a really rough day, and I just want someone to talk to. Why don't we take this outside?"

"We're friends," The man turned to the four soldiers, not realizing that Alex was with them, "Just between friends, sorry for the commotions, you guys." Appearing to be friendly, the man looped an arm around Alex's shoulder, pulling the slightly distressed agent closer.

"You better get your fucking hand off him," Wolf growled, stepping forward and felt immense pleasure in seeing the budding fear on the man's face that he could barely suppress.

The servant backed up a little but in his action, pulling Alex with him, "Look, dude, we're seriously friends, alright? Just mind your own business, okay man?"

"Don't call him that," Fox joined him, crossing his arms with a light attitude, "Wolf here doesn't like being called dude, and he certainly likes it less when you take our friend and threatens to beat him up. And when Wolf gets angry…Well, you don't want that."

"Hey," Alex spoke up softly to the man, trying to save the situation, "Why don't we just part here? I will pay for all broken things and plus extra for wasting your time, deal?"

"Like I said," The man turned to Alex, relinquishing his hold slightly so that they were face to face, " _I don't want you son of a bitch's money_!" The punch was unexpected and Alex was sent backward, his face jerking to one-side from the impact and it was already reddening madly.

That was all Wolf could comprehend before he swung his own punch, sending the man crushing against the stools lining the countertop. The man toppled backward against the chairs like dominoes before finally coming to a rest near the wall. The other patrons were slowly leaving, not wanting to get tangled up in the mess.

Ignoring the groaning man, Wolf made his way to Alex who was leaning against the other counter, nursing his jaw with a raised eyebrow. A quick glance told him that there would definitely be an ugly bruise but otherwise, Alex was fine.

"What?" Wolf grunted, crossing his arms at the amused look on Alex's face.

"You didn't have to do that," The young agent rolled his eyes, "I had it under control."

Skeptical, but unable to keep the relief from his voice, Wolf replied, "Yeah, you _sure_ did."

The cops came, of course, and a quick explanation was all that was necessary before they were escorting Alex back home. The bartender was kind enough to offer them free drinks, which Alex declined due to his insufferable gentle nature, something about it was all his fault after all. Complete bullshit. Sometimes Wolf did wonder how the fuck did the kid even became an agent because Alex looked like he would be crying over the death of a fly.

However, Alex did accept the offer of a large bag of ice which was now just water lying in a bag beside his bedside, a wet spot undoubtedly beneath the plastic. Wolf could make out the young agent's sleeping form, his head turned toward the wall and his form rising slowly before falling back down with equal softness. He gently closed the door before nodding at the inquiring gazes of the other soldiers. They returned the nod before heading off to their own guest bedrooms, knowing that in a few hours Fox would take over.

Alex had nightmares, they all knew. The first time Eagle suggested for the team to stay at Alex's, the young agent was rather reluctant, complaining about rat problems, rotten pizza, creaking stairs, and basically anything and everything that he could think of in a snap. All of them were dismissed by the eager Eagle who had no problems with anything except watching ghost movies at night. The real reason for Alex's clear hesitance was evident a week or so later when they woke up to a loud pained yell from the agent's room. Fox was the first and when the rest arrived, they could see the older ex-agent holding the younger tightly, desperately trying to calm the panicking Alex. Alex refused to see shrinks, saying that he was fine. Craploads of bullshit, but Wolf understood the reluctance. They had long ago resigned to the job of shaking Alex awake from his nightmares, insistent even though the young agent had blatantly refused it, even locking his door shut once. Fox had to break the door down that time when he tried to calm the agent through the door to no avail.

After that, Alex tried pills without telling any of them. Snake had thought Alex was getting better until that damn fucking stupid young man nearly overdosed and if it weren't for Eagle's mindless wandering of the hallways past midnight in search for food, they probably wouldn't have noticed it till morning.

Wolf didn't like it when people he knew, and begrudgingly cared about, die. A few weeks ago, T-Unit came back one member less. Later he was told that Leopard was shot and killed when they were heading back. The cars chasing them got close enough to get off one clean shot. So close to home yet suddenly so far away and forever gone. Lion wasn't handling well. Selfishly, Wolf prayed that it wouldn't happen to his team. That included Alex as well, whether he liked it or not. The stubborn son of a bitch was family no matter what and he sure as hell was not going to let some bastards shoot at the young agent.

But he couldn't help Alex if that damn young man wouldn't open up to him about what the bloody hell was occupying his mind. Wolf might not be the most observant person, but anyone who had been with the agent for two years could see the definite change in him. Alex knew better than to be distracted during missions, on top of that, the young man had certainly been the sharpest and keenest of them all. Something must have happened but every subtle attempt the team made were immediately shut down with a curt glance.

"We should go to the park today or something," Snake offered, "Spend some time off and we can perhaps run a little. Sergeant's been pestering a little about returning to training for a refresher course."

"Ha, no thanks," Eagle was quick to respond even with the bread in his mouth, "I'd take the park any day over Sergeant Williams."

"Anyone saw Alex?" Fox asked after rolling his eyes at the childish antics of Eagle, "Is he up?"

"I'll go check," Wolf nodded as he eased himself out of the chair and went upstairs.

Knocking softly, he called the young man's name. As expected, there was no response so he pushed his way in. Sunlight was streaming through the window and the thin material Alex called the new trendy curtain did nothing to block it. Conveniently, Alex was directly beneath the window and with the window at least a meter above him, the sunlight had no way of touching him. Wolf felt his lips tugging upward at the comical sight of the young agent hugging his pillow, his body naturally curling toward the soft object with his face buried in it as if the pillow was his everything. He quickly squashed down the smile and called out, this time a little louder.

"Alex, get up. Don't make me."

The agent groaned and shifted so that he now faced the ceiling instead of the wall. Though otherwise, he remained half-asleep. Wolf shook his head with a sigh and walked closer, forcefully pulling the pitiful pillow from his clutch. Alex groaned louder at the empty space, his hands momentarily flapping like a helpless dolphin but he was almost completely awake. Wolf decided to give him time and chose instead to lean against the desk to watch the agent embarrass himself. His gaze fell on the tri-fold letter, partially open to reveal the last few lines, the name and the date. It was from someone named Edward Pleasure. He had never heard of that before and Alex certainly had never mentioned him before. The letter was dated back almost six months ago, not that it was too surprising. Alex had been in missions for a good chunk of the six months, letters really weren't luxuries he could afford.

"Whatime 'sit?" The words were slurred and almost incoherent as the agent finally pulled himself out of bed, his feet flat on the ground and slumped with his hands supporting himself on the edge of the bed.

"Almost seven," Wolf replied, "It's late."

"You know kids need a good healthy nine hours of sleep, right?" Alex accused, masking a large yawn behind his hands as he stretched, hearing his bones crack.

Wolf snorted, "As if _that_ actually happens. C'mon, Snake wants to talk about heading to the park."

They did end up in the park later that day. Eagle had insisted on staying in the house till noon because the weather wasn't too his taste, though all of them (besides Alex) knew that the soldier was trying to help Alex who probably was still nursing a massive headache from the stinging punch. Eagle could be quiet…selfless sometimes.

Though out of all of them, Alex had the strongest bond with Fox. Probably because of the whole ex-spy relationship thing that Fox and Alex could rant and complain about the whole day: bad food, bad identities, bad names, bad people, bad mission, and bad everything in general. While Wolf could still talk to Alex about the things K-Unit experienced, it was never the same as Fox and Alex. He supposed, though, it made sense. Empathy brought people closer than sympathy. Wolf had always felt like an asshole after their first few months worth of partnership and them getting to know Alex better. With a shrug, Alex had told them that his uncle had died around the same time they first met at Brecon Beacons, the source of his guilt for a few hours until Alex told him to stop moping and dripping around and 'get the fuck to work'.

"So Cubby-kin," Eagle's sly tone bode no good news, "Got any girlfriends?"

Alex rolled his eyes with a snort while spooning ice-cream into his mouth, "Nope."

" _Boyfriends_?"

"Oh shut up, Eagle," The rude dismissal was accompanied by his good nature grin.

Eagle shifted on the opposite end of the sofa as he watched the youngest of them all enjoying the afternoon off. The television was playing something incoherent due to the absolute minimal volume Eagle had turned it to, "Seriously, Cubby-kin, you've gotta have some sort of lovey-dovey relationship. You're handsome, charming, badass-" Fox snickered, "-and totally OP. Suitors' gotta be lining up, 'm I right?"

Alex sighed and relented, sensing the undying passion the soldier had in pursuing this topic, "There was a girl."

" _Was_? C'mon, call her up, and I'll make sure it becomes 'there _is_ a girl'," Eagle grinned encouragingly, gesturing toward the phone sitting on the coffee table, "Come _on_ , Cubby-kin."

The young agent stabbed his ice-cream with the spoon, "Nah, she's moving on."

"Hold up," Fox intervened, his eyes widening in realization, "Al, is it Sabina? _The_ Sabina Pleasure?"

Pleasure. Wolf was sure he had seen or heard the name somewhere. The last name was rather uncommon, in the wide varieties he had heard but he couldn't place where and when. Something flickered in the young man's eyes at the mention of the name and the only other show of reluctance was the short downcast of his eyes.

"Yeah," Alex grinned and Wolf frowned at the physical display, "Well, we broke up like two years ago."

What happened two years ago? Wolf tried to piece Alex's broken life together in an attempt to understand the enigma that was the agent. Two years ago, Alex had come into their life, shattered, dejected, and nothing like the bright young man they had come to know over the years. Wolf had never heard the mention of a Sabina Pleasure from Alex, then it must have happened a little while before then. Or the broke-up could have been mixed in the whole Alex's-bad-month when that kid was moody as hell.

"So what?" Fox got up from beside Snake on the other sofa and plopped himself down between Alex and Eagle, shoving the other soldier to the side and looped an arm around the agent, "Love knows no boundaries. You love her very much, I know, and I know she does too. If you're still like this, I'm pretty sure Sabina's not moving on that well."

"That was two years ago," Alex shook his head, "I'd rather not go back."

"Why did you two break up?" Fox frowned at the dismissal, clearly knowing that he missed something important between the mystery girl and Alex, "I know that her father was-"

Abruptly, the young agent stood up and curtly placed the half-eaten ice-cream on the table, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey, where you going?" Fox grabbed Alex forcefully by his wrist, his eyes sharpened in alarm, "Okay, we're not going to talk about it. Sit back down."

"Let go, Ben."

Fox did.

The young agent took his keys and left the house. They heard his car starting and Fox leaped to his feet, threw the door open and yelled at Alex to stop, "Al, c'mon Al! We don't have to talk about this, alright? Al!"

The car still pulled away and Fox stomped back inside, a dark frown on his face and threw himself back down on the sofa. Wolf eyed him, "What was that?"

"Alex has issues with things he doesn't want to talk about," Fox sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose in distress, "He gets preoccupied," He paused, "I'm going to go after him."

"Give him a moment, alright?" Wolf shook his head, "He'll come back."

Fox glared at him, "I know, but in what state? You know how he gets when he's preoccupied. I would be less concerned if he were walking, but he's driving! I can think of seventeen different types of car accidents right from the top of my head."

"Calm down," Snake ordered, "Give him a call, perhaps?"

Fox nodded.

Alex, being Alex, did not respond, which in return resulted in a very agitated Fox. When the young agent finally returned with a white plastic take-out bag early evening, Fox was the first to fly downstairs, grabbing the young man in a bone-crushing hug who, to all their surprises, returned it. Neither Fox nor Alex bothered explaining and they left it at that. When Wolf later asked, finally unable to bottle his curiosity anymore, Fox had vaguely told him that Alex had been in a near-fatal accident last time the young man had abruptly left with his mind heavily preoccupied and frustrated. He didn't ask for more detail though this time it certainly was an improvement.

Wolf had the weirdest urge to ask Alex more about Sabina Pleasure, yet he knew better. While they practically live with each other, their platonic friendship was rather on-and-off. Wolf had lost count of the times he and Alex had gotten into a fight, but despite that, there were brilliant times when both of them would agree in unison that they would have been 'best buds' in past lives.

Alex could be the most annoying bloody fool sometimes, everything about him rubbed him the wrong way, but Wolf would be damned if he let anyone get away with insulting the young agent. True, Wolf confessed that he could complain about that bastard a whole entire day yet in the end, it all felt like a lie. For every 'bad' trait Alex had, the young man had something a billion times better to cover it up.

Which is certainly why he wasn't going to give up on that damn bastard and let him have the last words.

"C'mon, Cub," Wolf muttered, his fingers flying in search of a pulse. He found one as he pinched the motionless wrist, feeling the soft throb beneath his fingers, "Got him!"

Snake was a flurry of activities in an instance, carefully ripping open Alex's thin shirt that had been part of his disguise as a teacher-in-training. The knife wound was deep but thank the lord it hadn't been deep enough to be fatal. Alex was pale and remained still with his head on Wolf's legs, and his legs on the seats. Snake was crouched on the floor of the car with the two middle seats compressed and pressed to the side while Fox focused on driving, occasionally looking back in concerned frowns.

"It's just the knife wound?" Snake asked as he slapped quick bandage onto the open wound and applied pressure before directing Eagle to take over the pressure.

"No," Wolf clenched his hands tighter in a fist, "He was shot on the other side."

"Fox, call 6, we need a chopper."

Fox complied without a word, already dialing through his ear radio as he kept half an eye on the road. Wolf settled a hand on Alex's shoulder, wanting to shatter the illusion that was not real. Because Alex wasn't fucking bleeding to _death_ in the back of the car, unable even to be conscious or offer any consolation words.

Snake snapped his fingers before his face, "Wolf, focus. I need you to hold this over that."

The rest of the trip was a haze to him. They stopped somewhere and medics pulled Alex onto a stretcher gently before they flew him out, the helicopter leaning slightly to the side at take-off before it drifted easily and steadily toward the distance, toward Wales, toward _home_. Away from this god-forsaken place. When they rushed to the hospital, Alex was still in surgery and Wolf quickly gave Mrs. Jones a debrief before he was released. They waited. Then they told them Alex was going to be okay.

Alex was unconscious when they first visited but the next day, the young agent rolled his eyes at their anxious faces and called them the biggest worry-warts. None of them left at the insult and Eagle settled them down for a bedtime story even though it was ten in the morning. Alex fell asleep to it.

Mrs. Jones dragged him aside a few hours later, asking him what happened because Alex had never been wounded so badly in two years, not since his last run-in with Scorpia. Wolf told her Alex was having trouble focusing mentally, that he was drifting even in missions. They didn't know what was bothering the young agent but Wolf was determined to find out because Alex had said as soon as he was well-rested, he wanted another mission. Mrs. Jones then blatantly ordered him a month of rest and taking-things-easy. Alex frowned but agreed. Wolf wasn't going to let Alex throw himself in another mission without the young agent at least knowing his priorities.

Two weeks before the end of the month, Alex received a phone call. It was rather early in the morning when they were having breakfast. He went into his room and didn't come out for half an hour. They swore they heard a rather heated conversation. Hurt, that was what Alex sounded. When he came out, they saw he had been crying. Alex never cried.

"Who was it?" Wolf asked, tensing at the sight.

Alex shook his head and continued his breakfast, "An acquaintance."

Bullshit. ' _Acquaintances'_ could not make someone who never showed any weakness cry. Rather guiltily later that day, when Alex was out with Fox on a quick grocery run, Wolf stole upstairs and checked Alex's phone. It was locked but the front screen displayed three missing calls from the same person without an ID and a message.

 _Please_ , the message read.

Wolf jotted down the number and placed Alex's phone back where it was just as the ex-spy and spy entered the house, an air of amusement lighting around them. Excusing himself from the living room so he could escape to the yard outside, Wolf called the number using his own phone. It was picked up in two and a half rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey," Wolf lightened his tone, "My friend's not really in the mood right now, so can you please stop calling him."

"Who are you?" Uncertainty was evident.

"I'm Alex's friend," Just first name, if the person knew who he was talking about, the last name wouldn't be necessary. Alex's tone had been rather personal when he was talking with whoever this was, "Who are you?"

"I…I'm Edward Pleasure," The man replied, "I'm Alex's guardian. I'm sorry, but can you please tell him to call me back?"

Edward Pleasure. Hadn't he hear that name before? Of course. The letter back then sitting innocently on Alex's desk as sunlight streamed beautifully into the quiet room where the young agent slept without disturbance.

"What do you want with him?"

"I know Al's angry with me," Edward said hastily, "I want to talk with him, face to face."

The nickname infuriated Wolf even further. This man, Edward Pleasure, definitely knew Alex on more than a simple acquaintance level and the only person Wolf had ever heard calling Alex 'Al' was Fox. No one else. No one besides Fox was close enough to the young agent to call him Al comfortably.

"And he didn't agree?"

"No, but you know how stubborn Al gets," Sighing wearily, the man pleaded, "Please, convince him, will you? Tell him I'll meet him on Saturday at three o'clock in the afternoon at the cafe."

"What cafe?"

"He'll know."

"And if he doesn't want to come?"

"He will."

The call ended just as Alex called out through the door, "Wolfie Wolf, Eagle wants to watch some stupid movie at the cinema-"

"Star Wars is not stupid, I swear Cubby-kin, one more word, and I'll-"

Alex yelled back into the house, "All they do is chopping off Jedi's right arm! I call that stupid," He turned back to Wolf, "Wanna join us?"

All of them ended up going. Alex insisted on going in a two and three group so that they wouldn't look like gangsters. Snake snorted but complied. Eagle, good naturally, refused to be grouped with Alex because the young agent had insulted his favorite movie series and Fox was more than happy to go with Alex, something about watching another Jedi getting his or her arm chopped off and enjoying the moment together with the young man. Wolf got bunched together with Eagle and Snake. He didn't like it, but Eagle's stupid whispered commentaries pulled his conversation with Edward Pleasure to an alcove in his mind.

When they exited the theater, Wolf checked the time and his eyes fell on the day. It was Wednesday.

"Cub, can I have a word?" Wolf asked softly.

Alex arched an eyebrow, "Was the movie too brutal for you, Wolf?"

"Oh shut up," Wolf grunted, "Do you know someone named Edward Pleasure?"

The humor and amusement that radiated from Alex disappeared in an instant, leaving Wolf cold and vulnerable at the frost that had settled in the dark brown depths. It was more than frost. There was also undeniably pain.

"Why?"

"I…talked with him."

Alex glanced at him for a moment, something spinning and clicking in his mind, "You looked at my phone."

"Yes, but-"

The young agent shook his head, "It's fine, you didn't know my password. You checked the missed call logs, didn't you?"

"Yes," Wolf exhaled without realizing he had been holding his breath in apprehension for the anger he thought Alex would display for breaching his privacy.

"What did he want?"

"He wants to meet with you."

"No," Alex glared, "Absolutely not."

"Um," Remembering the location, Wolf added, "He mentioned he will be meeting with you on Saturday three PM at the cafe."

"What cafe?"

"He said you'd know," Wolf paused, "Do you?"

A slightly longer pause, "I do."

"Are you going?"

"Yes."

Wolf was taken aback, "I thought you absolutely not."

Alex motioned for him to catch up with the rest of the group who was glancing at them curiously, wondering the nature of the hold-up, "He's coming all the way from San Francisco."

"That's a long way," Wolf gave a low whistle, "But that doesn't matter. You can just not show up."

"Don't you see, Wolf?" Alex said exasperatedly, "It's exactly because he came all the way out here. Just for me. I can't just…leave him there alone to wait for someone who will never show up."

The man was using Alex's kind nature for his own benefits. Wolf's eyes narrowed. That bloody bastard. He promised he'd give that man a greeting he'd never forget.

"Whatever you're thinking," Alex gently poked his arm, "Don't. Just leave it."

They then left the topic altogether when they joined the other three. Fox was quick to tell Alex about all the flaws he found in the movie which Eagle counter with venom. Snake just looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Later that night, Wolf suddenly remembered he had forgotten to ask Alex about the relationship between the young agent and the man. The real relationship. Edward Pleasure had mentioned his position as Alex's guardian but when Alex told them it was an acquaintance, something in the young man's tone told Wolf that he had wished the man was not even an acquaintance.

It was Friday.

Wolf still couldn't convince Alex to not go and he had resorted to convincing Alex that he should tag along. Alex asked him if he knew what they were going to talk about and Wolf said no, which apparently was the exact answer Alex had been looking for. The young man told him it was rather personal and he wished Wolf to not be present to hear it. The other three soldiers had begun to pick up the underlying trouble and Fox was first to ask Alex. Alex refused to answer and his narrowed eyes throughout the whole tell-me-please conversation told the other two to back off. They turned to Wolf and Fox wouldn't take no for an answer. Wolf told them it was something personal, to which Alex smiled faintly in gratitude but Fox just looked even more irritated.

It was Saturday.

Wolf had been tensed the whole morning while Alex looked like it was any other Saturday. The young agent finished breakfast and promptly sat down, scrolling through the TV channels mindlessly. He landed on some news broadcasting channel that Wolf hated. Eighty percent of it were ads, repetitive ads, and only twenty percent was real news. He did wonder how it managed to survive and why in the world would anyone want to waste money to put ads on a channel that probably no one would watch.

No one besides Alex apparently. The intensive gaze trained on the screen would make everyone believe the level of passion the young agent had toward the ads. Eagle decided something odd was going on as he plopped down beside the agent. Alex jerked his head toward the soldier comically.

"So you like detergents," Eagle commented dryly, eyeing the rerun of the same ad the fifth time.

"Yes, I do," Alex nodded, refused to explicitly acknowledge that he wasn't paying the slightest attention to anything, "It's very nice."

"They mentioned apple-scented detergent," The blatant lie wasn't lost on the other soldiers but Alex, too engulfed in keeping his lie, nodded.

"I like apples."

"Okay, Cubby-kin," Eagle reached over and shut off the television much to Alex's visible dismay, "What's wrong?"

" _Nothing's_ wrong," The immediate response was perhaps a tad bit too immediate, "I really do like apples."

"First of all," Eagle slung an arm over the back of the sofa, turning sideways to face the young agent, "They didn't mention apple-scented detergent. In fact, the word 'apple' was never even mentioned."

"Bastard."

"Second of all," A smug grin lit up Eagle's face at the insult, "You've been staring at the ads for twenty minutes and I've never seen you do that."

"People change," Alex shrugged as he reached forward for the remote again, "Now, if you'd excuse me…"

"Eagle's right, for once," Fox joined Eagle on the other side of Alex, crossing his arms and the way the two of them positioned themselves it was clear they were having this conversation no matter what and they weren't allowing Alex to leave before it was finished.

By Alex's chagrin grimace, it did not escape unnoticed.

"What's been bothering you?" The ex-spy was genuinely concerned, "You're inattentive, you get wounded in missions, and for heaven's sake you manage to trip over even your own feet."

"It's just something personal, alright?" He massaged the bridge of his nose in clear distress. Wolf almost thought Fox, who probably believed he was some sort of big brother to the young man, would let it slide but the ex-spy pressed on.

"What is it? Is it 6 related?"

"No."

"Wounds?"

"No."

"Jack."

A glare, " _No_."

"...Us?"

"No."

Fox visibly relaxed but went back immediately to the one-sided questioning, "Missions?"

"No."

"...The Pleasures."

Wolf's eyes sharpened and he watched Alex. If he had thought Alex would be able to hide it, he was wrong. The young agent tensed and it wasn't lost on anyone. It had the biggest impact, however, on Fox.

"You talked with them," To Wolf's amazement, Fox didn't need any more input from Alex to draw out the conclusion, "They want to talk to you."

"...Yeah," Alex sighed and slumped back like a deflated balloon pinned down and unable to escape, "He did."

"Tell him no," Fox reached forward and gripped Alex's shoulders tightly, "There's a reason why you left them, Al."

"They gave me a place to call home, Ben…" Wolf hated the dejection in the boy's voice. He hated the way he said the word 'home' as if it was the best place in the world even though his whole body screamed something different.

Fox's grip tightened, "Are you sure, Al? Are you sure? Because you're the one who told me you don't want to be chained up like some sort of beast and institutionalized for something you did not do," He paused, trying to let it sink it for Alex at the same time a new possible realization struck him, "What did he want with you, Al?"

"He just wants to talk," Alex bowed his head as a tremor shuddered through his body, "Please, Ben."

"It's more than that, isn't it?" Fox pulled the unresisting boy closer and gently ran a finger through the dirty blond hair, "Tell me, Al. _Tell_ me."

The room collectively held their breath as the boy began to break down, his shoulders shaking with emotions and he buried his fast in Fox's jacket. As his hands started to lose their hold, Fox grabbed it and pulled him closer in reassurance, "It's alright. Tell me."

Alex stubbornly clung on.

"Tell me."

The boy drew a shuddering breath and softly, ever so softly, breathed, "Sabina's dying."


	2. Chapter 2

A.N.: Yes, I know I have no life and I shouldn't even be on fanfiction right now when I have so much work to catch up to. Did I mention I have no life?

* * *

Fox seemed to know who Sabina was. The rest of them didn't but wanted to know but neither of the spies—spy and ex-spy—were willing to let go of anything at the moment. Was Sabina his girlfriend? Family?

Wolf wanted to know.

They stayed in silence for a while longer as the late morning light engulfed them in warm orange rays that had managed to seep through the clear windows. Pulling open the curtains had always been the first thing Alex did in the morning. He claimed it brightened up the living room. It did, usually, but now Wolf could only see the dust particles as they danced under the sun. The deeper part of the kitchen was still engulfed in gray shadows and the flickering specks of dust made the whole scene ancient. As if the house had been left untouched for too long.

After the painful revelation, they ate lunch. Or, in other words, Alex ate lunch and pretended as if nothing happened while the rest of the house stared at him like a bomb that could go off anytime. In a sense, that was exactly what Alex was. A bomb, waiting to explode. All the pent up emotions inside the young agent were slowly leaking out and the fire fuming up around him wasn't helping.

It was one o'clock.

Alex didn't tell them about the meeting and Wolf was suddenly struck by the doubt that Alex had planned the breakdown. It would be so simple, reveal something big, gain sympathy, then leave them to meet with this Edward Pleasure under the pretense of wanting time alone. Wolf watched as the young agent comically tried to detach the cheese from the underneath bread of the pizza. It was hard to imagine the young man in front of him being anything more than a simple school kid, one more of those mindless drug addicts and gang-ho who had not a care for the rest of the world. That would have been better, 6 would have one less a spy but the world would have one less a dirty truth.

"I'm going to get some air," Alex stood up as he briefly finished his pizza, "Don't wait up."

Wolf checked the time. It was half past one. Alex was early. Looking up, he caught Alex's eyes, "Want some company?"

"No," The young agent shook his head, "No."

The second refusal sounded less certain but Wolf did not probe any further, "Okay. How long will you be gone?"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say as Alex, midst leaving the table, turned around and snapped, "For fuck's sake, Wolf! Just leave me be, alright? Just go mind your own damn business and stop poking into mine!"

Wolf didn't like it when people yell at him for absolutely no reason which was why he absolutely hated kids. But Alex could be such a fucking idiot sometimes. His whole body was trembling and his voice shook at the outburst. In fear. Alex was afraid, and he was trying hard to not show it. It bothered Wolf. He was not one to take insults and not bother returning them, but he didn't know if the exchange would result in something worse, given the unstable condition.

"Sorry," Alex sighed after a while, massaging the bridge of his nose, "I'm just gonna…go."

Then he left in a hurry, grabbing his car keys from the coffee table, donned his shoes, and rushed out the door. The door, surprisingly, clicked shut gently despite the turmoil of emotions. His car pulled away a moment later, leaving Wolf to wonder absently and uselessly if Alex was legally allowed to own a car.

Needless to say, a distressed Alex equaled equally distressed K-Unit and anything the young agent said or would say did not matter nor would it stop them from following him—which was exactly what they did. The rendezvous cafe was one Wolf had never gone to before but he must have passed by it some time in his life. It was called The Edge. A fitting name, for it was nestled in the intersection of the busy street corners, standing out brightly with its rather vintage colors amid the blue and sharpness of modern technologies.

Alex proceeded to the second table at the back. There was already a man there, nursing a cup of coffee. Must be the infamous Edward Pleasure. They didn't say hi or show any signs of a greeting. Words were exchanged but they couldn't hear it and Alex had gotten adept at maintaining his poker face. The young spy's frame tensed for a split second and he shook his head in refusal. The man leaned closer, adamant to get his point across, whatever it was. It was the first time Wolf had seen Alex physically flinching. In fear, in anxiety? He didn't know and couldn't tell but he did know that something was not right between the two.

"Stop," Fox tugged Wolf back, the leader not realizing his hand had settled on the car door handle, ready to exit the vehicle to confront the man, "Alex won't like it."

Since when did he listen to what Alex wanted or what he didn't want? But he settled back nonetheless. Alex was still refusing, his head shaking a few more times but they could finally see the first sign of a frown. It wasn't in irritation, but one that easily showed the internal turmoil. Edward slipped something across the table and Alex took it after a few words. A small gentle smile broke over almost uncharacteristically of the conversation but Wolf wasn't watching Alex. He was watching Edward. A sad smile appeared as Edward watched the young man in front of him glossing over whatever it was inside the letter. Wolf didn't like it.

Nor did Fox.

The ex-spy was out the car in a flash. Funny how the man told him to not leave yet doing the same thing only moments later. Wolf didn't attempt to follow, he knew Fox would be able to handle it. He would keep an eye out just in case. Eagle made a snort of amusement as Fox casually strolled into the cafe and stopped before Alex's table. The young man glanced up in surprise as the ex-spy nonchalantly settled an arm across Alex's shoulder and said something to Edward in greeting, a fake smile genuinely plastered on his face as he glanced at the man on the other side of the table, across from Alex.

Edward said something back and then he was excusing himself. He left through the backdoor. Hauling Alex up to his feet, Fox dragged the slightly-irritated agent to the car despite the loud protest of 'I will walk'. The car ride home was silent. Alex was in the passenger seat, leaning his elbow against the protruding curve of the door, a hand beneath his chin and his eyes were far away. He looked almost sad.

No, he didn't look sad.

He looked lost.

"What are you thinking about?" Wolf finally got the courage to ask.

Alex blinked and shook himself out of his stupor to turn to him, "Hmm?"

"What are you thinking about?"

The spy arched an eyebrow, "Well, dinner for sure."

Eagle chuckled and Wolf would have followed if it weren't so perfectly damn _normal_. It reminded him of his old unit leader who suffered from PTSD. He memorized all the shrink's questions beforehand so that he could pass with flying colors. He had passed yet he didn't pass, the shrink had deemed him too normal and that he must have seen the questions beforehand. She gave him a completely different set of questions, one that he failed dramatically.

"It's two in the afternoon," Fine. Two can play the game.

Alex grinned but it didn't touch his eyes, "Are you judging me, Wolf?"

Not replying, Wolf let the silence drag on. The young spy didn't seem to mind as he leaned his cheek back against his hand and his arm against the door, his gaze reverting back to some unseen place outside the window. There were only trees and buildings. How Wolf wished to know what was going on inside the complicated brain of the spy.

Alex was a very complicated person, to say the least. There were times when Wolf could read him as if he were the back of his hand, but other times, he couldn't even understand a simple smile. Hiding secrets seemed to be the young man's power. Alex had the will to restrain himself from saying anything and his poker face strengthened the barrier against all questions. Wolf had asked him what Edward wanted and what was in the envelope but Alex told him it was nothing, just 'another stupid letter' to get him to go back. From a begrudging Fox, Wolf had learned that Sabina was Edward Pleasure's daughter and Alex's surrogate sister, him being adopted by the family before. Something went wrong between then and now but Fox wasn't willing to share. Was Alex going to go back to check on the girl? Alex told him no but Fox looked skeptical as if the ex-spy knew how much Alex loved Sabina.

Wolf should have known.

"You said you're not going," Wolf crossed his arms, blocking the exit of the house. It was Alex's house, "And yet, here you are."

Across the young man's shoulder was a traveling bag and Alex was all dressed, "Move aside, Wolf."

"I don't trust this Edward Pleasure."

"It doesn't matter who you trust or not," Alex frowned, trying to push past him but finding Wolf's arms pushing him straight back, almost stumbling. The young agent was no match to Wolf in physiques, "I will be back shortly."

"Shortly as in a mission shortly?" Wolf snorted, knowing how unreliable Alex's sense of time was, "Because last time you said that, it was well over five months."

Wolf didn't want Alex to go, not before knowing what Alex was really throwing himself into. No, what Alex was throwing himself _back_ into. It sounded like hell. Even Fox was looking apprehensive yet he made no move to stop Alex.

Why?

"Sabina's my family," Alex glanced at Wolf stiffly, "Are you saying I should not visit her when she's sick?"

"She will get better."

That was the wrong thing to say.

"She's dying," The boy said, his eyes flashing in anger, "And this might be the last chance I have to see her."

Family above all, huh. Wolf understood but he wished he hadn't because understanding meant letting go, "I'll go with you, just in case."

"No thanks."

"Why not?"

"This is my business, and mine alone."

Then Alex left. Wolf knew he could have simply reached out and stopped him but he found himself moving aside to make way. His car started then it pulled away until it was nothing more than the shadow of a memory past the turn. He didn't like it. The apprehension refused to budge so he settled himself down on the couch moodily. Fox joined him, not liking it any more than he did. Edward was picking Alex up at the airport, scheduled to fly in an hour to San Francisco. If everything went smoothly Alex said he would be back in two weeks.

Two weeks.

A lot of things could go wrong in two weeks.

It wasn't that he didn't trust the kid—hell, he would go as far as saying he trusted the kid to, somewhat, have his back in battle—it was more because he didn't trust to kid to look after himself. Alex was not suicidal, he was just careless, believing himself to be invincible like all the other knuckleheads in the world when they had their fair share of action. They all believed combat and espionage were fun and cool, donning sunglasses, suits, and guns. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbow. It wasn't a game. Fine, they had their fun moments but getting killed was never fun. It was the feeling of adrenaline accompanying the danger and guns and mission that made it 'fun'. It was their duty.

Wolf had been on edge for one and a half weeks now. Alex had yet to say the time of arrival for his plane so they could pick him up, or at least meet him at the airport if he was still stubbornly unwilling. Then his phone rang and Alex told him he would be staying for another week. He sounded calm, not too calm but just the right amount of calmness that told Wolf everything he needed to know. Getting Edward Pleasure's address had never been easier. That man was a journalist for heaven's sake. Quick searches with Fox's friend, the MI6 tech Smithers, was all that was necessary to pluck the address from thin air then they were en route to the airport within minutes. Eagle and Snake volunteered to stay in case Alex got back though Wolf suspected they were hesitant going against Alex's wishes of taking care of his personal business on his own.

Were they too paranoid?

Wolf didn't have time to ponder the question before their plane was landing.

And Alex was waiting.

"Fox told me," The young spy said in his way of greeting, "And I'm not happy but you're here and you didn't buy a return ticket."

Wolf grunted in reply, feeling almost surprised that Alex was so quick to accept their presence.

He thought too fast.

"So I took the liberty to get it for you," Alex said, whipping out the two plane tickets from his pocket. Fox looked irritated but the spy plowed on, "Here. Go back. Go. I don't need your help here. I just need a few more days."

Whatever Wolf wanted to say was lost when Fox decided to take the rein, "I need to talk to Edward."

"He's with Sabina and I really need to get back."

Fox softened, "How is she?"

"She slipped into a coma two months ago," The news was delivered without a single twitch of his features. It was as if he was immune to emotions, "We're pulling the plug tomorrow."

"Did you have the chance to talk with her before…?" Fox trailed off.

Alex's deep brown stormy eyes flickered to the ex-spy's but did not say anything. Wolf didn't know if it was a 'yes' or a 'no'.

The young man, in the end, agreed to let them stay on the promise that they would not enter the hospital room. Edward was a grieving father and Alex didn't want to worsen the mood by implicitly announcing that he didn't trust the man in bringing Wolf and Fox in. So they waited a few doors down just in case, sparing a few glances every now and then to the ajar door.

Wolf didn't know why he was here, in San Francisco with Alex of all people and of all places. Years ago he would laugh if anyone suggested he would be looking after a kid a decade younger than he was and getting concerned over every trifle matters like a stupid mother-hen. He was a soldier. He served his country. His family was his team but Alex was not part of his team. He was a tag-along agent that they happened to be assigned to for one too many missions. Their chance meeting years ago back in training camp was nothing more than chance, an unlucky one as it turned out. He had grown about as attached as 'Mommy can I keep him' attached, and Wolf didn't like it. He could not risk his team and himself on the field worrying about the agent's safety. He couldn't concentrate on his job if he was acting like an overwatch for the young spy. When they were just mere candidates during selection, running drills and climbing hills with the burden called Alex were almost annoyingly normal when he knew that the agent would be gone soon.

If anything, he selfishly wanted Alex to be part of the SAS instead of MI6. That way, he could actually know where the spy was while doing his job. He needed confirmation. He could not stand outside buildings waiting for the spy to run out unscathed with armed men chasing behind. He could not even bear the thought of being too late. If Alex was shot on an exfil, he didn't know how he would cope. Wolf had prepared himself mentally every time out in the field for the possibility that the agent won't make it out alive this time. Funnily, he would have written a eulogy too, if circumstances didn't change so often that he had to create new ones before every mission. Their relationship changed unpredictably in between missions and he found himself needing to reword some of the phrases on the pathetic eulogies. He didn't want to write them but writing them made him feel at peace.

It was like writing Alex to death.

The thought of that pained him to no end.

Alex was no Macgyver nor was he a superhero. No one was invincible and the sooner Alex learned that, the better.

However, his wish was unfulfilled at the moment.

The sound of a gunshot filled the air accompanied by a yell. The spy and the soldier were on their feet in an instant, running towards the room. A second gunshot sounded just as they burst through the door, ignoring the loud recoil as the wooden door hid the wall and bounced back flatly.

Then the machines started screaming as the life pulse of the beautiful girl surrounded in the white bed faded away. Blood began pooling from the singular hole on her forehead. The lines stopped jumping up and down and they were flat. But Wolf had his eyes trained on the gun that Edward held in his hands then his eyes flickered to Alex on the ground, a hand clasped on his shoulder—it was stained red and the blood didn't seem to stop.

"Drop the gun!" Wolf roared as he advanced.

Edward's hand shook but he had no move to drop it, nor move to use it again. A single punch from Fox had the man unconscious and on the floor in a crumpled heap and the spy picked up the gun in disgust. Wolf was by Alex's side in a flash.

"Hey," His gentle tone almost surprised him, "Alex. Cub. Can you hear me?"

"Sabina…" Alex grunted in pain, trying to sit up but gave up immediately, his head dropping back to the ground and his hand tightening even further over the wound, "No…"

Wolf grabbed and ripped the edge of the blanket cover from the bed and pried Alex's hand away from the wound. Firmly pressing down, he glanced up at Fox, then at the unconscious man, then finally back at Alex.

The doctors, security, and nurses rushed in. They took in the sight of the dead girl in the bed and horror claimed their faces. Wolf swore loudly, "Man down! I need a medic here!"

He let the medics push him aside without resistance, knowing that he wouldn't be able to help Alex by simply applying pressure on the wound. It wasn't a serious wound but the amount of blood staining the floor was concerning. They pulled the spy away on a gurney, yelling medical words that he could not understand due to the buzzing in his ears. Fox said something. It took him a moment to translate it to 'let's wait outside the room'. He nodded.

On the way out, he caught one last glance of Sabina Pleasure.

So this was the girl.

She was proclaimed dead moments later, her prior coma state did not help her case but Wolf knew that the moment the bullet went through her brain, she was as good as dead. The amount of mental damage was not fixable. Between brain dead or dead, he would pick dead in a heartbeat.

The police came moments later and asked for witnesses. They were pulled aside to talk with one of the officers. Fox gave most of the details, which weren't much. The only one who had seen everything—and was able to talk at the moment—was Edward and he looked shell-shaken as if it had been someone else, anyone but him, who shot his daughter. He admitted to killing his daughter but he wasn't willing to say anything anymore than that and the officer didn't ask for more. They had enough to charge him.

Alex came out of surgery hours later. They put him in a hospital room and Wolf bet the cunning spy never thought of this coming. It brought an unwilling smile to his lips despite the situation. The young man looked pale but it was understandable. The machines beeped softly but over time, it grew annoying. Alex woke hours later. If Wolf hadn't been watching the spy's face carefully, he would have missed the opening of his eyes and the quiet assessment of his surrounding. Alex's eyes landed on him and he groaned.

Wolf asked what happened.

Alex told him Edward tried to shoot Sabina, Alex intervened, he shot them both. An ironic way of 'you will have to go through my dead body'. He didn't seem too fazed about Sabina's death. But it was Alex they were talking about. A quiet Alex could mean a billion of things that Wolf couldn't even put his fingers on. The police came again. They talked. Alex restated the results but not the cause. They grew annoyed and Wolf politely ushered them out when Alex began glaring. It was clear that Alex didn't want to talk about it. When it was necessary, he would.

The young spy discharged himself in the afternoon of the next day and they went home. Wolf asked if he wanted to stay to attend Sabina's funeral but Alex said he wouldn't, despite him being the last available family member. She had friends, the young spy said, they would fill his spot easily with their mushy eulogies. Sabina must have been a popular girl.

At age seventeen, Wolf could officially say that Alex's life had been one hell of a ride—with a negative connotation.

So Wolf took the liberty to dig out the what and whys of Alex's life when the spy did not seem to want to open up. What was the relationship between Edward and Alex? Why did Alex leave? What happened at the hospital?

The first question answered itself pretty easily when he confronted Mrs. Jones carefully on a late morning. She told him Edward was Alex's legal guardian for a year before some…unforeseen actions took place and they forcefully nullified the guardianship. There was an accident, Mrs. Jones reluctantly told him when he dared to press for more. She shut off after that, telling him to either extract it from Alex or drop it all together because she sure as hell was not going to give anything else away. It left him with more questions.

What was the accident?

Wolf supposed he would have to start from the beginning. Who were the Pleasures?

The questions did not get the chance of being answered before they were thrown into another mission, another exfil mission to be exact. Funny, it was as if all the missions they had of late were exfil. They were SAS for heaven's sake. They weren't a scrappy team of exfil soldiers. But Wolf didn't really mind as he turned to watch the passenger side of the door being quietly pulled open and a grinning spy plopped himself down and strapped in. The belt clicked and so did the sound of a grenade exploding near them. Wolf swore loudly and stepped on the pedal, the engine hummed in agreement as they sped away. More engines and gunfire assaulted their ears in pursue and the three back passengers easily returned fire.

Alex looked relatively unscathed but on closer inspection, he was anything but. There were bruises littered across his torso and legs and beneath the long sleeves, his arms were bloody messes— _dried_ bloody messes, but bloody messes nonetheless. Wolf's first comment had logically been 'what the fuck happened to you?' The young spy groaned in exasperation or pain and slumped backward with the reply that he tripped on a gurney in the abandoned building and fell down a hole. The wounds and scars did prove that but the utter carelessness confused him. Wolf had thought Alex was getting better.

He should have known.

K-Unit was sent on a different mission after the exfil and Alex was forced to have at least a week's minimum bed rest before any straining physical activities. Though without the unit's coercion, Wolf doubted Alex would stay in bed for any more than a day. Laughing, they had promised to bring back souvenirs from wherever classified location they were being deployed to. Rocks, flowers, anything that came to mind. The mission was hard, but just the right amount of hard. There were bullets, yelling, and bombs everywhere. The dry ground beneath their feet shook sometimes due to the impact and the rest of the sound were filled by the grinding of boots against rocks and sand beneath their feet. They got the package they were sent for without a hitch. It was an overall success.  
Except it wasn't.

Alex wasn't there at home when they came back bearing their 'gifts'. Eagle was disappointed upon discovering that fact after a few moments of hollering for Cubby-kin. Alex left a message on the table, saying he had been assigned on a mission and he was sad he would not be able to receive their gifts. Fox just sighed with a grin and set the dried flower beside the letter. Eagle was the first to raid the fridge. Alex had been nice enough to stock the fridge with mostly food that wouldn't perish within a week.

They settled down to wait for news on Alex, spending their days loitering around doing absolutely nothing and what Alex would call terrorizing neighbor's kids by walking in groups like gangsters. Wolf grimly agreed. They had indeed been reported once when they had all decided to don sunglasses and stand around the playground suspiciously. They were just standing, for heaven's sake but the neighbors had thought otherwise.

Weeks turned into months. Still no signs of Alex. It had been six months. They had gone on numerous missions and back, yet Alex was still not home. The dry flower was no more than a brown-gray thin stick on the table and it looked as if it would disintegrate upon touch. They were worried, even though none voiced their thought.

Then Mrs. Jones called and asked if Alex was back yet.

That was when they knew something was really wrong.

They tried calling Alex but it always went to voicemail until a day later the phone was no longer in service. Mrs. Jones sent Smithers to track down the last GPS signal. It was in San Francisco. The deputy told them that Alex had wanted a month or so off-duty to visit Edward and to 'make amends'. She had agreed, knowing that Sabina's death had hit him harder than any of them could see. It was Jack all over again. Yet not Jack at the same time. Alex had wanted to stay longer and Mrs. Jones gave him the time. But now that seemed to have been the wrong decision.

Alex was not responding to their calls.

They had no idea why.

It caused panic and panicking caused a series of 'What-if' questions that Wolf did not want to ever think about. They were off-duty at the moment and with permission, K-Unit was on the first plane to San Francisco to retrace the missing agent's steps. The prison was their first destination, or rather, Edward was their goal. Even though Wolf knew that it would be highly unlikely for the man in prison to have taken Alex, it did not stop him from growling at the man.

"Where is he?" The hands-off rule was the only thing standing between Edward's face and his fist, "I swear, if you harmed him, so help me God I will personally rip your head off."

Alex would wince at the brutality.

But Alex wasn't here.

"Who?" Edward asked, puzzled but shrinking in fear nonetheless.

"Alex," Fox had Eagle and Snake pull Wolf back, "Do you know where Alex Rider is?"

Edward shook his head, "No, no I don't know. He didn't tell me."

They exchanged a glance, "When did you last see him?"

Time didn't exactly exist in the prison but there were always some prisoners counting down to the last day of their days in hell. Edward was one of them even though his sentence was a long one. Fifteen years was a long time. One and a half decade for killing his daughter, "He usually visits on Sundays and Wednesdays but he suddenly stopped about a month ago. I haven't heard from him since. Why? What happened?"

"Why was he visiting you?"

At the question, Edward snuck a few glances around and shifted in his seat, beckoning them closer as if he was sharing a top-secret government information, "He found something."

"What do you mean?"

"At first, Alex came to me to talk about the…shooting, to talk about his feelings. Then four months ago he came to me and told me that Liz didn't die in an accident. Someone had been trying to kill us."

"Who's Liz?"

"My wife," The man said grimly, "She died three years ago when Alex was living with us. There were some heavy backlashes."

"You said 'someone tried to kill us'. Who's 'us'?"

"My family. My wife, my daughter, and me. I'm not sure if Alex was included then," Edward frowned, "No, he probably wasn't. The article was almost four years old now."

"What article?"

They learned a lot from the man, about Alex as well as the Pleasures. Edward was a walking magnetic of trouble when it came to journalism apparently. He often attracted and angered the wrong audience and people had been sent to kill him and his family. Alex, apparently, had found that out just recently—recently as in four months ago—and had ever since then been trying to track them down.

Bloody idiot.

Alex disappeared a month ago. By now, he could be in the middle of the pacific ocean for all they knew.

Sounded like they had a three-year-old murder case to solve if they wanted to find Alex.

With minimum background story from Edward accompanied by the aid of the MI6 tech Smithers, they started their search. Elizabeth Pleasure, wife of Edward Pleasure. She slipped into a coma after a car accident three years ago and died a month later. Alex had escaped with cuts and bruising, being on the passenger side of the car when the oncoming car hit the driver's side head first. Edward told them the three of them took it hard but himself the hardest but was unwilling to share the details. Fox filled in the blanks however ways he could in angry sentences: Edward blamed Elizabeth's death on Alex and they had grown apart. Grown apart was apparently the light version of the truth, judging by the long hesitation before the words and the deepening of the brow. Edward looked almost afraid and in denial at the unspoken history.

Smithers tracked down the owner of the car that hit Mrs. Pleasure's car three years ago. He had died on impact, no wife, no child, and—with the exception of his distant brother whom he had yet to see for a decade—he had no other family. Fox decided to rule it as a suicide hitter, the man wanting simply to die. There was no money transaction after the hit as far as they could dig and the man didn't seem to be in dire need of money.

A week later, Alex was still missing.

Eagle found the phone of the hitter in the storage room. It was dead so they charged it back up. Miraculously, it cooperated willingly. The screen was cracked as if having gone through multiple transfers between the owner and the floor. The phone number was long out of service but there was one call log. They recorded the number down and called it on a burner phone to increase secrecy, even though Smithers could have easily redirected the signals. The call did not go through and they traced it to a burner phone as well. It was purchased three years ago by a woman named Cherry. She was dead and had been so for the last two months. A heart attack. At age seventy, it wasn't all that surprising. Cherry wasn't the dead man's mother, so what was she doing with a burner phone?

Another week went by but no sign of the spy.

Edward showed them the article he wrote three years ago. It was the one that uncovered the fraud of a drug company. The company had already disappeared, naturally, leaving no trace that they were ever there. Everything and everyone seemed to be either dead or disabled in this case. The lead inevitably led them to the owner of the company.

"He's dead?" Eagle's dismayed exclaimed mirror everyone's thoughts, "Dead dead?"

The widow shot them confused glances, "He is. Why?"

Eagle fed her a few crafty lies and then they were on their way out. They were about as lost as one could ever be chasing dead leads. Absently, Wolf wondered how Alex was doing. Why would Alex disappear in an investigation? Did someone take him because he found something he wasn't supposed to? Sounded like the start of a headache.

Two weeks later, Alex popped out.

Well, more walking than popping.

They still had no leads with everyone pretty much dead. Visiting Edward in the prison had become a regular routine, and apparently, Alex had the same idea. They were going over the details with Edward for the nth times when Alex plopped himself down next to them and grinned.

"Hi," He said.

Needless to say, the yelling got a little louder than allowed and they were ushered outside by the security guards. Alex gave them a quick rundown after Fox calmed Wolf down enough to explain to Alex that Edward had told them about Mrs. Pleasure's planned death. Alex was way ahead of them.

Turned out, it was a gang thing. The informant that gave the information to Edward was part of a local gang and had specifically wanted his name out of the papers. Edward must have let it slip and the name went up within the article. Things got hairy from there, hence the revenge scheme, and Wolf didn't need an explanation to know the plot of afterward. He was just glad that Alex was fine. The gang was still there, but new leaders and new members ensured that no troubles would follow. Wolf asked what Alex had been up to for the last month.

"I was clearing Edward's name."

The spy had a smile but didn't give out any more details. Two weeks later, the charge dropped to misdemeanor and Edward was cleared to leave. Wolf pressed for details upon hearing the statement and Alex actually laughed and told him that if Edward didn't kill nor harm anyone, he should not be charged with any jail time. Not that it made any sense though if it made Alex happier, Wolf wasn't going to stop it. Alex even invited Edward to live in his house but the man had declined with a sad smile, saying that it brought back bad memories and it would take him a while before he could manage it. The young man just nodded and watched him leave.

"What did you say to make them drop the charge?" Wolf asked as Alex closed the door behind him.

Eagle, Snake, and Fox were out in the shop, commenting that it was a reason for celebration. Alex settled himself comfortably on the sofa and sighed, "I spoke as a witness."

"What did you say?"

"That Sabina died before the shot," The young man gently shut his eyes and massage the bridge between, "And Edward panicked and he wanted to kill himself. I got in the way and there was a stray bullet that hit Sabina. If he had no intention to harm anyone, he will not be charged with illegal discharge of weapon. And definitely will not be charged with homicide if Sabina was dead beforehand. All I had to do was find a good lawyer who was willing to take my case."

"You're seventeen."

A snort broke through even though Wolf didn't know what was funny about the whole nightmare, "I'm a spy and I watched my adoptive father planning to shot my sister to give her the most painless death he could think of."

"What?"

"He didn't want her to suffocate to death by turning off the machine," Alex said quietly and bowed his head, his head in his hands and his elbow supported on his legs as he leaned forward with a bone-weary sigh.

It wasn't a sigh as it turned out.

It evolved to a harsh choked sob.

"Alex?"

The boy shook his head and wiped his eyes, "I'm sorry."

There was something else Alex wasn't telling him and he was hurting on the inside because of it. How was he supposed to help when the obstacle was the spy himself? He was not the unit therapist and he was not the go-to person for a tête-à-tête.

"You're not telling me something."

Alex didn't reply.

A week later, the spy was sent on another months-long undercover op and the house was empty again. Wolf toyed with the thought of going into Alex's room to find what the agent was keeping hidden but he dismissed it the second it was formed. It came back. He pushed it away. It took him weeks to finally move away from the thought. The bedroom door remained closed. While he wanted to get to know Alex better, at the same time Wolf didn't want to. What if it was something he would regret knowing? It would take more than a spy family history and amazing agility to be recruited into MI6 at the stunning young age of fourteen for two years and running. Whoever Alex was, he had something the MI6 wasn't willing to let go of. And with it came great prices. Soldiers from fields developed PTSD, who said children sent onto missions would escape mentally unscathed simply because they were top agents?

Everyone dies.

That thought kept running through his mind as he drove, hearing the panicked statements and the raspy breathing—harsh but fading—in the backseat.

"Drive faster, Wolf!" Fox yelled, sparing Snake and Eagle the trouble as they busily attended to Alex's wounds.

"I'm trying!"

They were everywhere.

They as in the enemies but also they as in the wounds and blood.

His eyes were on the roads but his mind was in the backseat. Fox was firing shots from the passenger's side, leaning against the hood of the jeep as he aligned his gun. His sniper rifle had been replaced in favor of the rapid firing of the machine gun. There were too many enemies and a splay of gunfire could pick out more than a rifle could.

"How's he doing?" Fox yelled down as he fired aimlessly towards the general direction of the incoming vehicles in pursuit. Their exfil would be a really hot one.

Snake grunted something incoherent through the cacophony of sounds of gunfire and roads. Eagle translated it through, "Not good! He's losing blood fast. We need to get him to a hospital!"

There was blood everywhere. Wolf drove faster, knowing that every second counted more than he could ever imagine. Then silence gradually settled in, replacing the heavy machinery. Wolf heard Alex's ragged breathing and he was almost panicking. He reigned it in as his hands tightened on the steering wheel, willing to machine beneath them to go faster than it had ever done.

"How long to exfil?"

"Five minutes! Take the next right!" Fox shouted over the wind as he settled back down in the passenger side, still keeping a careful eye out for anything in the wilderness of the highway, "The chopper is in the open field."

"Tell them to fire up," Wolf spared a glance at Fox.

Fox nodded, "Already did."

Under the wind and beneath the rotating blades, they lugged Alex into the backseat and the pilots took off. They soared. Snake was still working on Alex and Eagle was simply trying to stop the blood flow as he pressed down. Wolf heard someone saying 'c'mon' over and over again. It was Fox. Then he realized he had joined in. He didn't really pay attention to it. Alex's face was pale, too pale. The blood flow seemed to have slowed but Wolf didn't know if it was because it was clogging or that there was simply no more blood.

Wolf wasn't religious but he prayed.

 _Please don't let him die. God, please don't let him die._

How did this all happen? What happened to the invincibility? What happened to the Superman? When did it go wrong?

The landing was a blur. Wolf ran along the gurney as they escorted Alex into the hospital and disappeared behind the closed blue doors. The nurses stopped him, their gloved hands settling over his camouflaging uniform and tugging him away for check-ups. He didn't need it. _He_ wasn't the one dying. A few of the onlookers gave him glances. He didn't care. Cradling his helmet in his arm, Wolf slumped against the wall outside the emergency room and refused to move. He thought he heard Fox talking. The nurses left him alone after a while. Fox settled on the floor next to him and sighed, his hand firmly clasped on Wolf's shoulder and shook him softly in reassurance.

"He'll be okay."

Would he?

"Everyone dies."

"Not today."

Fox sounded awfully sure and Wolf didn't ask him how he knew. He wanted to believe, even if he wasn't a believer. He wanted to believe that Alex was going to be okay.

"What you thinking about?"

Wolf shook his head. Wishes to a shooting star wouldn't come true if you say it out loud.

The emergency light was still on after three hours. Wolf knew he could stand in line for three hours if needed but for the first time, he found himself unable to sit still for three measly hours. He found himself pacing. The nurses offered him a seat and he angrily pushed them away, letting Fox take care of any collateral damages. The ex-spy finally pushed him onto one of the seats and told him to go to sleep, saying he would wake Wolf as soon as the doctor came out. Wolf refused.

Fox brought him water.

It was drugged.

He fell asleep, letting the exhaustion, as well as the drug, take their effects.

Wolf dreamed. He dreamed that he was dreaming a dream where Alex was dead and when he woke up, panting and panicking, he was in the war zone. Alex was lying beside him, blood splattered on his soldier uniform. Alex wasn't part of SAS but the dream was too real. He fumbled to unstrap the bulletproof vest from Alex's uniform to assess the damage. The clips clicked in release as if it were real. There was blood everywhere. He tried his best to stop the blood as he yelled for a medic. There were bombs and dirt flying everywhere but when he looked, there was no one else. No one else beside them. No one was throwing the bombs, they were just there, exploding and sickeningly blocking their paths.

Wolf woke with a harsh grunt. He expected to find Fox next to him but it was Eagle. The man was nodding off beside him, his arms crossed and his head jerking up and down comically.

Fox rounded the corner with coffees in hand and didn't look too surprised at Wolf's opened eyes, "Alex's fine."

Wolf turned towards the emergency room. The lights were off. He had slept through it. The ex-spy gently stepped around the dozing Eagle and seated himself on the other side of Wolf, handing him a cup of coffee, "Snake's dealing with the paperwork as we speak. The doctor came out half an hour ago. Alex, he's stable but it would be another few hours before they deem him stable enough to be moved to a room. They want to make sure there is no internal bleeding that they might have missed."

"He's fine."

"He's fine," Fox nodded as he repeated, clasping him on the shoulder, "He's alright. He'll be on his feet in no time."

That wasn't far from the truth. Alex was transferred to St. Dominic as soon as he was physically able to. Edward came. Wolf didn't want to let the man past but Fox pulled him away. Edward was not a monster, Fox told him, he was just a man grieving for the loss of his wife. That statement alone told Wolf that Fox knew everything that happened between Edward and Alex in their time together three years ago, about what happened in San Francisco.

So Wolf asked.

And Fox answered.

"After Mrs. Pleasure died, Edward put Alex in a mental facility when Alex started to react from PTSD. He threatened to kill Alex," Fox pulled him back before he could storm into the hospital room, "He made amends and Alex has as well. It's a fitting ending, isn't it? Wounds can only be closed by those who inflicted it."

Wolf snorted, "What 'bout doctors?"

A small easy grin lit up Fox's face as he ran a hand through his hair, "Well, poetry got me that far."

Things went smoothly and Alex was discharged after two weeks. Wolf swore that spy could regenerate like a lizard, minus the tail. However, Alex refused to see a physical therapist, no matter how hard Snake tried to tell him it would help more than harm. The spy was adamantly sure that seeing a shrink was going to defect his brain forever. Wolf snorted. Sometimes he felt the same. They made him attend one session but that did not turn out very well when the therapist told him Alex was 'stubbornly uncooperative'. Sounded exactly like Alex. In the end, they resorted to basketball. The intensive games would still tire Alex out but he didn't seem fazed by it at all. He was recovering.

At least, that was what they had all thought.

The nightmares were worse and Alex had refused to see a therapist nor talk to anyone. Too many times Wolf caught Alex simply staring at his fist, clenching and unclenching the muscles as if trying to hold on to something that kept slipping away. His hands were shaking. Wolf didn't know what to do and any of their attempts at conversation would be turned down. Alex was adept at sensing heart-to-heart conversations. It was as if saying that some things had to be solved by the young man himself.

"Wolf man what you want to drink?" Eagle's cheerful voice broke through his thoughts, "Coffee? Tea? Ice-cream?"

"You don't drink ice-cream," Alex rolled his eyes.

Eagle shushed him dramatically, "Wolf doesn't know that."

"I'll take coffee, thank you," Wolf grunted at their childish antics.

Alex got up from the sofa to help Eagle with the serving tray that Wolf had no idea where the man got it from. Trust Eagle to find the weirdest things to bring home. Alex set two of the beverages down on the low coffee table. When he straightened, he accidentally bumped into Eagle. The soldier stumbled a few pace, the third drink in his hand stumbled a little and began tipping out of his arm.

Alex reached out, his fingers grazing the glass but slipped. The glass onto the wooden floor in a loud dull smack and the liquid scattered, leaping upward and staining Alex's shirt, "Shit."

The unit sharpshooter hurriedly set the other two beverages on the table before assessing the damage, making sure that Alex was all right, "You okay?"

"Yeah," The young spy said grimly, wringing out the edge of his shirt in dismay, "Just soaked. No worries, I'll clean this up."

Something was different in his tone. Wolf blinked and glanced closely at Alex, watching every twitch of his features. Nothing betrayed what he was feeling. The wooden floor did not shatter the glass so all they had to do was to mop up the water and get a new glass. Eagle bent down to help out.

"You sure you're okay?" The question was enough to have Wolf's eyes sharpen in alarm.

Alex smiled in reassurance, "Yeah."

Nodding slightly but not reassured at all, Eagle jerked his head at Alex's hand, "What's with that?"

His hand was clenching and unclenching again, sometimes jerking to a quick stop mid-action, simply curling up till the tip of the fingers touched the palm. Alex shook his head and pulled his hand away.

"It's nothing."

"Alright, if you say so," Eagle shrugged and dropped it.

In the end, Wolf resorted to simply occupying Alex so that he would not think about whatever it was that he was thinking about. His hand rarely did the clenching thing when he was occupied though Wolf was beginning to understand the trigger-point of the action.

It happened again at the shooting range. They went to the shooting range every other week to brush up their skills in between missions. One of the secretaries that they were more familiar with, Vanessa, dropped her clipboard as she was fumbling for her ID badge over the counter. It slipped and Alex reached out. For a moment, he caught it, then it slipped out and fell with a loud clatter. Wolf and Eagle who had been walking in front stopped and turned around at the sound. The one word that could sum up the expression on Alex's face was lost. His hands were reaching then pulling back as if stung.

Wolf briskly walked forward and pulled Alex away from the secretary as she bent down to retrieve the clipboard nonchalantly, "C'mon. Let's go."

Alex nearly stumbled, his eyes never leaving the clipboard, "But…"

"Let's go," He said with more force this time and pulled Alex along.

Wolf should have thought of it earlier. Ever since Sabina's death, Alex had been doing the whole fist clenching business. It wasn't nothing. It was a reflex, of him reaching out and grabbing something, but it slipped right out of his fingers. It was a haunting memory of being too late. But too late for what? What was the start of this? Too late to save the girl? But Alex knew that Sabina was going to die that day, guns or not. So too late for what?

Wolf didn't mention the discovery to Alex but he made sure to watch the young spy gingerly for his every action. The pattern was obvious when he knew what he was looking for. He didn't tell Fox nor his teammates. They didn't seem to have noticed it. Whatever it was, it seemed to have originated from that damn day in the hospital with the girl.

What happened?

The only other person who knew what happened was Edward but Edward was in San Francisco. Though he had his phone number since that fateful day when he found the missed messages and call on Alex's phone. Wolf called Edward and the man picked up within two rings as if he was near but not next to the phone.

"Hello?"

"This is Wolf," He had never told anyone outside the unit and his family and friends his name. He wasn't going to make an exception for the man who had hurt Alex badly in the past, "I just want to ask you a few questions about that day at the hospital."

Straight-to-the-point blunt. Wolf didn't have the patience to smooth corners and twist roads to get to his destination.

The man paused for a moment before sighing, the breath rattling the speaker, "Go ahead."

"Why did you shoot your daughter that day?"

"I…I just wanted to relieve her the least painful way," Edward said quietly, surprising Wolf by answering the brutally cruel question, "I can't bear the thought of her slowly suffocating to death."

"Why did you shoot Alex?"

A long pause, "I was panicking."

"Why were you panicking?" If Edward had the courage to even pull the gun out of his pocket and aim it at his daughter, why would he be panicking?

"Because…" The man's voice broke as small sobs escaped him, almost heartbreakingly similar choked sob he heard months ago when he first realized that Alex was hiding something from him, "Oh god…"

"Why?" Wolf was so close to getting the truth out of the lesser reluctant of the two and he didn't have time to smooth his words out. If his words were salt, let it burn the man's wound. He didn't care. He just needed a cure to save Alex, "Why were you panicking?"

"Oh god…" The sound was muffled for a moment as Edward inhaled softly and presumably dragged a hand down his face to wipe away the tears or fatigue, "I…I aimed the gun and…Al…Alex, he wanted to stop me."

"So you shot him?"

"No," Edward said, his words mixed with heavy sobs, "No…I didn't shoot him. I…I turned and I pulled. I pulled the trigger. I just turned and pulled…Oh God. I didn't even look. I knew I had the correct aim, I knew it would be where…be where I planned. But then…"

"Then what?"

"I didn't look…" Wolf let the silence dragged on for a moment, sensing the need. The fire needed to be stroked but piling firewood on top of the pitiful fire would not serve the purpose, "I shot her…Then Alex was trying to wrestle it out of my hand…and I just shot him. I was panicking because…God, her...It was so horrible…I just turned…and I…and I pulled. "

Wolf shut his eyes, "What was so horrible?"

"Sabina," Finally, a different word, "Sabina…she turned. Oh god. Her head. She turned her head…and then I shot her."

The rest faded away to harsh crying. Wolf suddenly understood. More than he ever wanted to. He was numb as if he had been mindlessly standing under the rain for too long.

Sabina, the girl, had moved.

She had come out of her coma, finally, and Edward had pulled the trigger.

He had killed his only daughter.

Suddenly, Wolf felt sick. The call was long ago disconnected but he hadn't heard the beeping. Edward had killed his only daughter and Alex had watched him do it.

And in a moment, all of a sudden, all the pieces fell together to complete the gigantic nightmare. Alex had watched his adoptive father kill his sister, the one person he loved the most in this cruel world, and unable to do anything.

Alex was too late.

God.


	3. Chapter 3

Alex was on a mission. Wolf never got the chance to talk to him about what happened at the hospital, nor had he told Alex about his call to Edward. The journalist and the spy, Wolf mused, the guardian business couldn't have worked for as long as it had. And now he finally got to know what glued them together. He didn't want to—but he guessed that was what people meant by to mind their own business. A man and his former adoptive son held together only by the bridge that was the girl: Edward's daughter and Alex's sister, his former girlfriend. To some degree, they were similar—Edward wasn't answering any more calls and Alex wasn't talking.

To say Alex wasn't talking was the understatement of the century. Alex was a walking cloud of disaster. All the pent-up emotions inside of him were running loose despite all the smiles and laughter the young spy managed on a daily basis. But only Wolf could see that, and only after knowing. The rest of K-Unit could see something was wrong, but they didn't know what was wrong. Scratch that. They did know what was wrong. They knew it was about Sabina, as it had always been ever since the first moment when everything went so wrong without them knowing. What they didn't know was _how_ wrong. Wolf didn't want to tell them. He felt as if he needed to.

In the end, he kept it to himself.

It had been four long months since Alex's departure into his mission. It was normal, Wolf told himself, he had nothing to worry about. The situation he found himself in was almost funny if he were to watch it through a broken filmstrip. It was as if one day he woke up and suddenly Alex became part of the team. It was so sudden, he didn't know when it had started. It just did. Or perhaps it was like a flower blooming. Last time it was no more than a small bud, but now, it was the brightest flower amongst the lush green.

Sort of like Alex's garden. He liked Alex's house. It was peaceful and situated in a busy but orderly neighborhood. Before the mission had taken Alex, the young spy told Eagle to look after his garden. The sharpshooter did, for the first few weeks, then he just gave up. Four months was a long time, and the wild grass, dandelions, and mysterious plants had sprung their roots, making the garden just a little short of a wild field. At least the lemon tree Alex planted was growing healthily. It was still young, but it was growing. Some sort of rodent, squirrels maybe, had gnawed off a little bit of the root and after Eagle attended to it (he added something, Wolf knew), the rodents didn't come visit anymore. They occasionally did clean but that was months ago during Christmas. When they had hoped that Alex would pop by as a Christmas miracle.

Alex's mission started in November and it had been four months now. Christmas was almost moody without the presence of a child unwrapping presents. Eagle toyed with the idea of inviting a bunch of annoying neighbor's kid over so they could at least pretend to enjoy the holiday. Snake calmly told him he would have to clean it up himself and Eagle stopped. Fox hadn't really been himself during the holiday. He had been worried about Alex. Wolf had wondered if Alex was celebrating Christmas with others too, even if it was under a different name. It was a holiday worth stopping work for.

The spy came back on the first of April. April first. April fools. They didn't know Alex was coming back. If they had, they wouldn't have ordered pizza. The delivery guy came, his cap hid his face but when he spoke, he couldn't contain his grin.

"Al!" Fox had answered the door and his loud happy exclaimed drew the rest of them from the kitchen. They had been squabbling about which color fork they should use but all thoughts flew from Wolf when he saw the young spy grinning foolishly in the front porch in his pretentious delivery guy costume.

Words failed Wolf, but they didn't fail the other members of K-Unit as Eagle, after setting the pizza in Alex's hand down, grabbed the young spy, lifted him up, and did a 360 spin, "Hey Cubby-kin!"

Snake gingerly poked the scar on Alex's face then pulled Alex in for a quick slap on the back, "I'm glad you're alive."

They moved the pizza to the kitchen table and then Wolf found himself facing Alex, being the last in the line. Eagle gave him a wink from the kitchen table as they cleared out the living room to give them space.

"Welcome home," Wolf finally managed.

"Glad to be home," God. He really missed his voice. Alex arched an eyebrow at the chuckle that escaped Wolf, "What's so funny? Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to know."

Wolf opened his mouth but Alex wasn't finished as he dumped his bags on the sofa, "I want to know what happened to my garden. Eagle!"

"What?" The sharpshooter peeked his head out, "Oh, the garden? I like the weeds."

Alex groaned as he plopped himself down on the sofa, "God, you guys are so useless."

The rest of K-Unit hadn't been wasting their time in the kitchen for a few moments later, they came out with napkins and placed the pizza box in the middle of the coffee table, "Dinner's here. And since Cubby-kin just came home, he gets to pick the largest slice."

Eagle shove the plate in Alex's skeptical face. The spy shook his head and rejected the offer, "I can't eat."

"What, got used to the food from wherever hellish place you got sent to?" Fox joked as he took a slice despite Eagle's accusing glare at Alex not going first.

Alex rolled his eyes with a huff, "I wish. You have no idea what I had for breakfast three months straight. McDonald's one dollar breakfast deal. Every. Single. Morning. And sometimes lunch and dinner too."

"That sounds like heaven," Eagle commented as he took a slice as well after determining that Alex wasn't going to eat, "What's to complain about that?"

Wolf, however, had other ideas, "Hold up. Three months? You were gone for four."

"Oh yeah," Alex groaned and dropped his head on the sofa and shut his eyes, "I was in the hospital. Surgeries. Had one about a week ago, which is why I'm not eating right now. The doctor said to stay off greasy food for a while. I'd kill for a slice of pizza now, actually."

"Surgeries?"

Alex rolled his head to the side to see Wolf, "I got staked."

"What?"

Shifting but not lifting his head off the sofa, the young spy arched an eyebrow, "Staked. Have you never seen any vampire shows? You know, when they stab vampires through the heart with a wooden stake thing? But on the bright side, it wasn't through the heart. For heaven's sake, people should stop throwing stakes around."

Despite the seriousness the topic deserved, Wolf didn't feel too worried. Alex was grumbling about the absurdity of stakes and the ugly gaping hole it made, and the young spy didn't look pained. Well, he did look pained emotionally, but definitely not physically. He knew it would probably be months before Alex would finally drop the complaint against stakes. Against his wishes, he winced. Being 'staked' did sound painful.

After a merry round of good nights, Alex went upstairs to his bedroom. Even though Eagle didn't bother with the garden, he did bother with Alex's bedroom. He made sure to clean it at least once a week to make sure the specks of dust didn't claim what didn't belong to them. It was almost midnight but Wolf felt refreshed as if a dark cloud had been lifted from his being.

Perhaps Mrs. Jones was right. Missions did take Alex's mind off what he should forget. Wolf hadn't seen the lightheartedness in Alex for a long time. But he was afraid when morning light came, everything bad, dark, and haunting would come flooding back. He didn't want tomorrow to come. He was selfish, he knew, to think it might have been better if…if Alex hadn't crashed into their life. What would be different? K-Unit might not be as close as they were: living under the same roof had strengthened their bond more than friendly visits could ever do. But that would be all, wouldn't it? Wolf didn't sign up for the wild roller coaster ride of emotions that he had been experiencing ever since this partnership began two, no, three, years ago. Three years. Hell, it had been so long. How much longer would it be?

Wolf hated himself for even thinking about it. He was the one who opened the Pandora Box that was Alex's past. It wasn't Alex's fault. It was no one's fault but his. Perhaps it was time. He had to talk to Alex about what happened at the hospital. They both needed closure, and right now, they were both far from it. Wolf didn't know what his closure would be, but he definitely knew what Alex's would be. Alex needed to hear from someone, to understand, that it wasn't his fault. Sabina didn't die because of him. There had been nothing for Alex to be too late to. But there was. How could Wolf explain past that? They both knew Alex was too late. And the two little words would blacken everything else.

But they had to talk. Wolf didn't care if it would tear old wounds open because if talking about it could tear wounds, it meant that Alex hadn't gotten the closure he needed. Alex needed to think about Sabina without the feeling of being too late drowning him. They would find a way around that.

"Alex," Wolf cornered Alex on his way down the stairs, "Can we talk?"

It was early in the morning but Alex was already up, despite coming back late just the night before. The young spy rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned softly, "Yeah, okay. Lemme get something to eat first."

"Let's talk first," Something in his tone must have betrayed his anxiety because Alex looked suddenly ten-folds more alert, "It'll be quick."

It would be anything but quick, Wolf knew, but he didn't want to alarm Alex. Baby steps, he told himself, _tiny_ baby progress.

"Okay," Alex shrugged and climbed down the rest of the stairs. They went to the sofa. Alex occupied the single chair to the side and Wolf took the one facing the TV, "What you wanna talk about? If it's some lame excuse about the garden, I'm not listening. I—"

"It's about Sabina."

There was a moment of silence.

Alex blinked, "What about her?"

He was taken aback by the blatant lack of anguish in the young spy's voice. He had expected anything but this. Wolf awkwardly cleared his throat and frowned, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Alex hummed softly, clearly hoping Wolf would drop it. And when he didn't, he sighed, "I don't want to talk about her, alright?"

That was supposed to be good…right? Sign of improvement. Alex wasn't shaking, he wasn't trying to push down his emotions, he just didn't want to talk about it with his usual tone. He sounded…sad. Just sad.

"Okay," Wolf eased himself back and let an easy smile take over his face, "Alright. So about your garden…"

The response was immediate, "When I came back home yesterday, I almost didn't recognize my house if not for the number. What kind of people leave their garden growing wild like it's some sort of jungle?"

Wolf laughed. He listened. The room seemed to be brighter all of a sudden as the sun climbed past the houses and snuck through the thin curtains. So many months ago, he remembered watching the dust rose and flickered beneath the sun as if the house was old, weeping, and yearning for life. But now, they flickered like fireflies in bright daylight. It was almost serenely beautiful, watching them dance across the air. The top of Alex's hair was lit by the light and his dirty blond hair was a pale shade of glowing white. His head moved every now and then as he emphasized his complaints against Eagle, and Wolf couldn't help but chuckle. Alex took it as him siding against Eagle and nothing more.

Wolf had worried too much, for nothing. Alex had found his closure, and Wolf felt as if he had found his as well. It was almost too good to be true, but after four months of pessimistically waiting for Alex's return, everything was too good to be true. Alex returning with only a visible scar on his face, and surviving a 'stake' attack, was too good to be true. Hell, Eagle not blowing up the house during Alex's absence was a miracle itself.

It was, in one word, weird. When the black clouds lifted themselves, something else went with it as well, something that made his life whole, something that was necessary. He felt free as if he had cut his anchors. But without the anchors, he had no directions. Everything reminded him of a freakish superhero movie. What would they do once they saved the world? When the adrenalinerush was gone with the actions, what was left beside the shell wanting a purpose? It was disturbing and Wolf didn't like it the slightest.

"We should go watch a movie," Eagle was saying as he plopped himself down on the sofa and chugged down the glass of water on the coffee table, "Re-watching Star Wars Prequel doesn't sound so bad, eh? At least Cubby-kin won't complain about all the right arms."

"I've never complained about any right arms," Alex rolled his eyes, "Don't be so presumptuous."

"Oh yeah?" The sharpshooter arched an eyebrow and shifted, putting on his best Alex-Impression, " _All they do is chop off Jedi's right arm!_ I call that stupid. Your opinion has forever been engraved in my head, don't even try to deny it."

"Oh right," The young spy blinked nonchalantly as he took a loud sip of his beverage, "I remember. It's just I thought it was a universal truth."

They ended up settling for Ocean's Twelve since Alex refused to watch anything that was animated—he called them childish—and Fox didn't want anything with senseless killing and loud yelling for a duration longer than two minutes. Snake had no preference and Wolf was against everything. They didn't listen to his opinion. They straight out ignored him.

And time started flowing again. They would spend their off-time around the park, at home, and simply relaxing, putting the thought of work in a dark secluded corner. Or at least, K-Unit did. Alex, instead, got a tutor, courtesy of MI6. Fox told him that Alex did have a tutor before, but it didn't end well, at all, when he ran into Scorpia mid school field trip. Alex was smart but Wolf enjoyed watching Alex getting flipped out when something just beyond his scope of knowledge came up. It was sort of like watching Mary Sue failing to be Mary Sue. No, he wouldn't say Alex was an all-knowing human being or someone who possessed skills beyond his years. Alex was simply adept at luck and the whole espionage business. Nothing more than that. He was still, in the end, a child brought too early into the adult world.

Sometimes he would look at Alex and think of how horrible the world was becoming. Perhaps Alex was only the gate to the unpredictable inhumane things the government, and the people would do in the future. Though in a few decades or so, the definition of inhumane would probably be drastically different from now—which was why he preferred to stay in the moment. It was easier to worry about what to have for dinner tonight than getting worked up over thirty years into the future. He didn't want to go that far. But it was funny, to say the last, how people could simply worry about dinner when the ocean could potentially swallow them whole in the near future.

"Hey Wolf," Alex came thundering down the stairs one late afternoon, brandishing a letter in his hand, "When did you drop this in my bedroom?"

Wolf frowned and beckoned Alex to move toward him instead of him toward Alex. He damn well wasn't getting up from the sofa and away from the TV for the young spy, "What letter?"

"This one," He shoved the beige letter in Wolf's face and flashing it for only a moment but Wolf caught the name Edward Pleasure clear as day, "It was on my shelf."

"What are you talking about?" Wolf frowned again as Alex settled himself down on the sofa.

The young spy turned the letter over and opened it from the flap without breaking the paper. He frowned, "I've opened this before, haven't I?"

Wolf had seen the letter lying open on Alex's desk before but that had almost been a year ago. Of _course_ Alex had seen the letter. The young man tugged out the letter despite Wolf's lack of a response and glanced at the date stamped on the front, "Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing," Alex frowned but he clearly had something to say regarding the matter, "Well, the date is almost a year ago. I'm guessing I've seen this but I must've forgotten."

Forgot. Wolf almost snorted at the utterly ridiculous understatement, the only thing keeping it in was that Alex didn't know he had seen parts of it. He shifted in the sofa and opted to watch Alex carefully. Of course, he was glad Alex was better and wasn't showing the signs of the wound from the series of nightmares in the past year. But it was as if some parts of Alex just gave up and let it go. Alex had taken 'moving on' a little too literal and the change unnerved Wolf.

The silence dragged on for longer than Wolf's comfort but Alex's eyes never left the white cover, "You alright?"

Alex blinked, a finger absently running beneath his lips and his figure leaned against the side of the sofa, "Yeah. Hey, did Edward come by lately?"

"Edward?" Wolf arched an eyebrow, "No. Something up?"

"No," The young spy shook his head and let the letter dangled by his side as he stood up. He headed upstairs, his sock-clad feet muffled the normal noise but the creak of the stair echoed in the lazy afternoon.

So Wolf decided to have a talk with the rest of K-Unit when Alex was out one day to 'enjoy his youth' with teenagers his age. When he brought up the lack of trauma he had, they agreed with him without missing a beat. It had been three years since their first unofficial assignment to Alex, and Fox noted that Alex's nightmares were almost gone. He no longer woke up in the middle of the night in harsh pants, and sometimes Fox found peace whenever he heard the even breathing upon checking up on Alex. But they all remembered the look of despair, hurt, guilt, and everything dark on Alex's face the first week after Sabina's death. The bleeding might have stopped, but the scars should still be there. Alex was missing a scar. It was as if he was miraculously healed sometime during the months-long mission. The four months they didn't spend together, a lot of things could have happened. _A lot_ was an understatement that Wolf had learned to never use in association with Alex— _a lot_ of things could happen in a day for Alex, who knew what four months would do?

They weren't detectives for Heaven's sake, but then K-Unit found themselves buried in one mystery after another in the series that was called Alex's Life. First Edward, then Sabina, then Alex's past—Wolf bet they had only scrap the surface of that—then Sabina again, and now this. But suddenly, Wolf wasn't so sure anymore. He didn't want to go down the path again. Once was already the roller coaster of a lifetime. He hated roller coasters.

Wolf knew he wasn't a perfectionist. Droplets of water that escaped the cup counted as necessary casualties but he wouldn't bother wiping it away. It would stay there until it evaporated or when the perfectionist came in and wiped it off. But he was a perfectionist, on a different sense. Because every time he set foot outside the boundary of Alex's house, he was no longer a house guest but a soldier. Every small mistake he made could end someone's life. In his line of work, he needed everything to be perfect. A sniper shot off by a few millimeters from a distance could mean the needless fatality.

And Alex, Alex was something that…Wolf couldn't find the right word. Alex used to be someone who was imperfect in all the right ways. Alex used to be human. He used to feel things. He used to have scars. But now, the way the young spy was dealing, or rather not dealing, was too perfect. Too idealistic. Too pretentious.

Sure, Alex could have been preoccupied with missions, but Alex was dealing too well. Sometimes, Wolf wanted to simply tear the wound open again, in moments of sick satisfaction, just to see really see Alex being Alex again. How selfish of him. Now, Wolf didn't know what was happening. He was in the doormat to Alex's life, having run out as soon as he called out, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to open the door again even if he had the key. He had had the key since the very beginning.

Yeah.

No.

He was not going in. He was going to wait. Wait for something to move inside the house. Alex could deal with it. One day, the pointless denial would come back to bite him and then Wolf would help him. But not until Alex realized his mistakes.

Wolf backed off and finally found himself enjoying his life for the first time in three years. He could sit down in front of the sofa and offer Eagle chips without having to worry about the catastrophe sitting next to him trying to steal the remote. His scope would be trained on his surrounding in exfil and his mind on his scope, not on the agent running toward them. Yes, he still worried about Alex's safety, but that was his job. He would deal with the physical wounds but never the emotional and mental ones ever again until Alex could show that Wolf's efforts were getting somewhere.

If Alex noticed Wolf backing off on his personal turf, he didn't say a word. In fact, it was as if he didn't notice it at all. Wolf was angry. Then he felt resigned. Then he was frustrated. No matter how hard he tried to pull away, he always ended up on one subject. Because until Alex could finally pull his head out of some dark hole of an alternate reality, Wolf felt the need to pull Alex out of it himself. There was something fundamentally wrong with Alex.

Then reality hit him one early morning. There were yelling downstairs, then the sound of something being smashed into a billion pieces was heard. Wolf fumbled for his gun as he took a glance at the digital clock. It was three in the morning. The sound of adjacent bedroom doors opening told him that he wasn't being delusional before dawn.

"Marquis is dead!" It was a woman. She was crying hysterically, "My sweet sweet boy is dead!"

The front door clicked softly shut when Wolf came softly down the stairs with his gun out in precaution. He motioned for the rest of his team to wait upstairs. They nodded as he moved down the stairs.

"You can't be here!" That was Alex, "You're not supposed to be here. How did you find me?"

"You think you can run? You think you can run from…from what you did to my boy? He trusted you. They won't tell me what happened."

"Hey, no, no, no, don't do that…"

Another plate shattered. The sobbing did grow more intense but there were no coherent words for a moment.

"Hey, Kimani," Alex again, "Hey. I'll clean up the plate, don't worry. It's alright. T—"

Before Alex could finish, the woman threw another plate from the dish rack at Alex. The young spy was clearly caught unaware and it was only his arms thrown up at the last second that avoided a trip to the hospital on a stretcher. Gravity pulled on the porcelain and it shattered on the ground at the resistance from Alex.

"Hey!" Wolf's voice rose in volume at the monosyllable word as he rounded the corner sharply, "Stop!"

The woman gave a sharp yell in shock and fear when Wolf came into view with his pistol drawn and pointed straight at her. Alex had his back turned to him but at the shout, the young spy turned and stepped directly into Wolf's line of fire, successfully blocking Wolf from attempting to shoot the unfriendly intruder.

"Wolf!" Alex held up his hands as if trying to calm Wolf down, "Wolf Wolf, put your gun down! You're not helping."

"Alex, who is she?" Wolf didn't budge but he did lower his gun by a fracture, "What does she want?"

"Alex?" The woman asked, her hands almost adamantly inching for another plate in self-defense, "No, it's Martin"

Alex turned around and tugged her hand away from any more of his wares, "Kimani, why don't we sit down? We will talk, alright? We'll talk."

"He's dead, Martin…" The woman was slowly calming down and Wolf's gun was lowering at the same rate, "My sweet Marquis."

Wolf hadn't expected Alex to pull the mother close and envelope her in a hug. Alex was taller than her, Wolf noticed absently as he gave the OK sign to his teammates. They slowly came downstairs in their nightshirts, their guns on their side. Alex rolled his eyes at the weapon and his eyes beseeching Wolf to get rid of the weapons as he slowly angled the mother away before she could get even more freaked out by the guns.

Finally, the woman separated herself from Alex and at his usher, settled down on the sofa as she wiped away the tear trails, "I'm so sorry about the plates. I don't…I don't know what..."

"It's alright," Alex said as he sat down next to her, "It's about time someone changes the plate collection. Maybe I can get some beige-colored plates this time."

Kimani gave a short laugh then she took note of the men standing at the bottom of the staircase looking a little loss and tousled, "I don't bite, boys. Please, come sit with us."

"No, you know what?" Alex had the audacity to refuse her request as he gave them a meaningful glare, "They're just gonna go back to sleep while we talk."

"I'm sorry for saying this, ma'am," Wolf said as he plopped himself down on the opposite sofa with a small chuckle at Alex's exasperation, "I'm staying. Just want to make sure no more plates will be harmed and A…Martin here doesn't get a concussion."

Wolf turned to the rest of his unit and jerked his head toward upstairs and they got the meaning. Returning to the woman and the spy, he shot a glance at Alex who nodded grimly. Wolf sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This woman, Kimani, was someone from Alex's mission. She wanted to find Alex, and she found Alex. God, it was as if MI6 didn't put any effort into concealment.

"Alright," Alex began as he shifted on the sofa to try to find a good position to settle down, "What do you mean Marquis is dead?"

It wasn't hard to see the woman trying her best to rein in her flood of emotions, "After you left, Marquis never came home. Then…then oh sweet Heavens, they called me down to the morgue, and they," She took a long swallow, "They asked me to identify Marquis' body. I, I don't know what happened. You went with Marquis, right? You took Marquis. He never returned. I asked about you, they said there was no one there. You were there, I know. I just know it."

"I…" Alex looked stunned as he sat back, "I didn't know." Distress shone in the brown depths as he clasped a hand over his mouth and took a deep shuddering breath, "God…"

"I'm tired of all the bullshit I've put up with the authority," Kimani reached sideways and gripped Alex's forearm tightly, "They won't tell me nothing. They said my son died 'cuz he was with gangs. Marquis ain't no gang. He doesn't even go downtown unless he ain't got no other choice. He went with you. Tell me, Martin, why did you leave my son…bleeding to death?"

Wolf couldn't believe his ears. No. That was not Alex. However, when Alex spoke, it was not to Kimani, "Wolf, can you leave us for a moment?" He looked up, "Please."

For a moment, Wolf wanted to ignore Alex. He needed to know what happened. Then he remembered Sabina. Another case. Another step closer to Alex's life.

No.

"Okay. I'm going back to sleep. Find me if you need me."

Alex shut his eyes and slumped back. It wasn't until Wolf reached the top of the stairs did Alex begin speaking again but by then, his voice was too soft and too far away to be coherent. He tempted with the idea of eavesdropping but his feet carried him straight back to his bedroom and he closed the door. He locked the door.

He had never locked the door before.

Somehow, the sensation of the lock clicking in place brought him immense satisfaction—as if the plain dull wooden door could barricade the unwanted temptations out.

Wolf slept. Albeit tossing and turning for a good half an hour, but he slept. Four hours later, he woke. The first thing he did was went downstairs to make sure the woman was gone. She was. And for two seconds, he thought the whole brewing storm was just another funny nightmare of his. Alex's figure, elbows on his knees and his head hung, dispersed all hopes of that. Silently, Wolf went to make himself coffee. There was a mug of the beverage before Alex but it looked untouched. The pieces of the shattered plates still littered in the kitchen and Wolf wondered how long Alex had been sitting on the couch. Did he show the mother out?

"Alex," Wolf called out as the coffee finished brewing, the aroma filled the morning air, "Coffee?"

When he received no reply, he glanced at the figure in the living room. Alex hadn't moved nor shown any sign of hearing Wolf's generous inquiry. Signing in mild annoyance, Wolf poured himself a cup and made his way to the living room.

Wolf sat down on the corner sofa and took a sip. Alex remained motionless but at least from this angle, Wolf could see his eyes a little better than from in front. And more importantly, the shadow underneath them. They were dark, "Did you…You didn't go back to sleep."

Silence met his empty statement. Great. He was talking to himself. Wolf heaved a great sigh and set his cup down. He leaned forward and really tried to make a good eye contact, "You wanna talk about it?"

Alex's shoulder rose and fell in a silent inhale and exhale and his head rose a little until his gaze was parallel to the floor. His hands moved too until they were palms together before his face in a mixture of praying and thinking. His eyes were bloodshot and the dark highlights did nothing to cover it up and if anything, the combination of the two simply pronounced how bloody awful Alex looked.

Then the young man slumped sideways onto the sofa, his head resting on the armrest and his feet coming up to occupy the rest. Alex covered his eyes with a hand while the other hung limply down the side, "Wolf, I messed up."

Wolf didn't have time to think before he sprouted out, "Stop. The offer for a tete-a-tete has expired two minutes ago."

And the moment those words came out, he hated himself for being the selfish person he was. Then he remembered why he said what he did and the pang of guilt resided to the background. Alex heard him, but he chose to say nothing. He pulled his gaze off the spy and took a sip of his coffee. It was still warm.

"Did she go home?" Wolf asked after a long while. If it weren't for the sound of the tap in the upstairs bathroom running, he probably wouldn't have chosen to break the silence.

"I drove her to the airport."

Wolf blinked in surprise, "The airport is an hour away."

"Yeah."

Then Alex dropped the hand covering his eyes and stared at the white ceiling. The young spy shut his eyes seconds later and opened his mouth without prompting, "I can't drown it out."

Perhaps on a later day, looking back, Wolf would have berated himself for not immediately asking what Alex was trying to drown out. Because if he had asked then, things wouldn't have gone the way they did in a very horrible near future. But Wolf didn't ask. He wanted to ask then, but he told himself no. Every fiber of him screamed for him to ask, but he pulled away.

Wolf got up to make breakfast. He would have asked what Alex wanted, but judging by the cold coffee, he didn't think Alex would be wanting breakfast. Or anything to eat for the rest of the day. Placing the slices of bread into the toaster, Wolf came back to the sofa and listened to the start of an upstairs ruckus. The bathroom door finally opened and a different person immediately occupied it. In a moment, Fox would be descending the stairs with his typical demand for coffee. Then Snake and Eagle.

If Wolf hadn't been absently watching Alex, he would have missed the small gasp and the immediate opening of his eyes when the toaster jumped in readiness. Wolf didn't have time to dwell on it before the ex-spy came down the stairs.

"Good morning, Wolf. Hey, Al, you're up early," Fox greeted them cheerfully, noticing only Alex's prone figure but not his expression as he cut immediately to the kitchen, "Ah bloody hell, Alex! The plates. The pieces are still here. You want me to clean it up?"

Wolf got up, not knowing why, and went to Fox, "I'll deal with it later."

The ex-spy arched an eyebrow skeptically before his gaze landed on Alex. In the duration of Wolf's walk to the kitchen, he had turned so he was facing the back of the sofa and his back to the rest of the world, "He alright?"

"Not sure," Wolf refilled his coffee mug, "But give him some space. I don't think he wants to talk just yet."

"Okay," Fox filled his mug but his eyes never leaving the spy's figure on the sofa, "Who was the woman yesterday? She called him Martin. Must be from his latest mission?"

"Yeah."

"You tried talking to him?"

"I did, but he's not making much sense."

"Huh," Fox chose to sit in the kitchen to respect Alex's personal space, "Maybe he's still torn up by Sabina's death. Whatever the mission was, it seems to have reopened wounds. He was pretty upbeat the first day he got back. It usually is the worst on the first day," He glanced at the spy, "Looks like that isn't the case with Al."

"How did the woman managed to track Alex down? He had a different identity, MI6-proof, and Alex sure as hell would have seen her if she was following him," That was what Wolf didn't get. The woman Kimani shouldn't have been able to even follow Alex once he was extracted. The numerous transitions, cars, and trains should have stopped any normal civilians from tracing Alex home.

"I'll talk to Mrs. Jones about it," Fox nodded, "But what did the woman want?"

They got their answer faster than they had anticipated when Alex suddenly began packing two days later, saying he was going on a 'business' trip. It was early in the morning but the sound of wheels on wood woke Wolf. He stopped Alex before the spy and the suitcase could make their way past the door. Wolf was angry because last time Alex left with a lie he was gone for five months, trying to find Elizabeth Pleasure's killer and demand justice. He didn't like uncertainties. So naturally, he asked for a detailed explanation.

Alex rolled his suitcase over to the sofa and plopped down. He looked tired, "A month ago, on the last day of my mission, I took the boy Marquis out to say goodbye. I know I shouldn't have made ties, but I did."

Wolf understood more than he wanted to and he glanced at Alex encouragingly. The young spy sighed wearily, "I didn't know my cover was blown. I don't know what happened. One moment we were walking past the construction site, the next a car pulled up and began shooting."

"...That's how her son died," Wolf sank back in his chair.

"Yeah," Alex dragged a hand down his face and kept it over his nose and mouth in silent distress, "They must have gotten the wood splinter from the construction site and got me on the stomach. When I woke up in the hospital…God, Marquis was only twelve."

Wolf eyed the spy with equal weariness and absently, he wondered if the emotional pain was contagious and could be spread through the air, "And you feel guilty about it."

"Yeah, I do," Alex looked away, "I could have saved him, Wolf. He was standing right there, if I pulled him just a little closer to the side, push him to ground, pull some crazy stunts, anything. Goddammit, I could have saved him. Marquis could have been alive."

The way Alex talked about the boy he met for four months held more raw emotions than he had toward his sister whom he had known for three years. Wolf knew he shouldn't have, but the bitter tone came with his next words, "If only you feel the same for Sabina's death."

Alex's eyes changed and Wolf was too late to rescue his words, "Oh God…Alex, Cub, I didn't mean that."

"...What?" The word came out in a breathless whisper, "Sabina…She's dead? How do you…God. No, no, no no no!"

Wolf leaped forward as Alex stood up abruptly and spun around, crashing his fist against the wall harshly, "Hey, Alex! Cub! Don't do that."

He grabbed the descending fist and pushed Alex back onto the sofa. Goddammit. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. Wolf edged forward and sat against the armrest of the sofa near Alex.

"Sabina's been dead for almost a year now," Wolf spoke up softly, the harsh truth unintentionally made Alex hung his head lower as if billions of sharp blades were flying and he was trying to keep his sanity, "You've got to get past the stage of denial, Cub."

Shakily, Alex pushed away Wolf's hand grounding him to the sofa and stood up, "You don't understand Wolf."

Wolf pushed him back down again and crossed his arms, "I understand plenty. I know what happened that—"

"No!" Alex ripped Wolf's hold on him away but remained seated thank goodness, "You don't get it, Wolf!"

"Fine. What don't I get? Tell me."

"When I woke up that day in the hospital a month ago," Alex began softly, "They told me I nearly drowned."

"I thought you were…staked."

"I know, but I must have slipped into a pond or somewhere," Alex shook his head, "They said it took them more than the normal amount of time to revive me. They said it was a miracle that I even survived."

Wolf felt something caught in his throat and he swallowed, "But?"

"They said I'll suffer from memory loss," Alex bowed his head, his hands laced over the back of his head and he pulled himself closer, "They said I will have memory gaps but I don't know what I'm forgetting. You can't remember something you don't know. I…I didn't remember Marquis dying, Wolf. I don't remember Sabina dying. I should have, shouldn't I? She was…she was the only one I have left. God, what other people did I forget?"

The crucial piece to explain Alex's behavior fell into place and suddenly it became clearer. Everything made sense in a way that he had never considered before, and a way that he never wanted to ever consider. Memory loss. What a funny idea.

"You're joking."

"What did I do, Wolf?" Alex glanced up, his eyes wilder than ten minutes ago when he stopped the young spy from fleeing out the door, "What am I not remembering?"

For a long moment, he held Alex's eyes but offered no reply. What did he have to say anyway? It wasn't as if a simple word from him would unlock the memories. Someone had wiped the windshield clear and driven the fog away, but on a lone miserable intersection without directions, he was still lost. But at least he was no longer running around bruising himself. Was it really better?

And then, he was in the house of Alex's life again. This time, there was no going back. Wolf reached over and settled a hand back on Alex's shoulder comfortingly, "Eat some goddamn breakfast. We're leaving in an hour."

Alex glanced up, "What?"

"You want to find what you missed, right?" Grimly, Wolf gave Alex a clap on the back, "I'll give you a hand. We can start from the very end and work our way backward," The young spy looked lost, "That's what you wanted to do with that suitcase, weren't you? You're going to visit that woman. I'll come with you."

"Wolf…"

He pulled his hand away with a deep exhale, "Look, whatever you're going to say, save it. It's all messed up, Cub, and I don't like it. Let's deal with this first, alright?"

With grim satisfaction, Wolf watched the young spy got up from the sofa and nodded silently in compliance. An hour later, when the first sign of light flickered through the window like uncertain winds shifting through the fields, they left with a note left behind. Fox would understand the importance of their impromptu trip down memory lane, so would Snake and Eagle. It was a trip that everyone had to take some day, sooner or later, to revisit or remember what they had forgotten. It was like a word that he couldn't remember, but it was right there on the tip of his tongue and he knew he had heard of it as often as his name.

Their plane landed. Mrs. Jones would definitely hear about this later, but as Wolf watched Alex navigate the roads of his previous mission, he couldn't care less. This was important to Alex, and with Edward's words still stuck in an eternal loop inside his head, it was important to him as well. Perhaps somehow along the way of Alex finding his closure, Wolf could finally shut off the nightmares.

They had donned a casual civilian outfit, and passerby may think of them as brothers, but not quite. It was morning, but not morning because the remnants of the previous night were still dispersed in the air, and it was chilling in a nice way. It wasn't surprising when Eagle called about an hour later, demanding the meaning of the two-sentences note taped on the front of the refrigerator door. Now that Wolf thought about it, he supposed 'Alex has amnesia, we're trying to retrace his steps. Don't wait up.' wasn't going to explain everything that needed explaining. He wasn't even sure he had the answer to everything that needed explaining—but Alex certainly didn't.

Wolf had been here before, but he'd never been to this part of the town. The black neighborhood. Some of the smaller kids stopped playing as soon as they passed the gate, but it wasn't in suspicion or fear but in excitement.

"Martin!" Alex turned just in time to see a few of them rushing toward him and Wolf could only give an amused snort as he swept them off the feet in a group hug.

"Is Marquis really gone?" One of the little girls asked, lingering behind when the rest slowly drifted back to playing. Alex squatted down to her eye level as she continued, "They said Marquis not coming back."

"They?"

"Marquis' mommy. She was crying," She glanced down at her feet with crestfallen eyes, "You didn't come that day to play with us. Then the police came, and they talked to his mommy and then she started crying. We didn't know where you went because you left with Marquis and you never came back. Marquis didn't come back either. We didn't know what to think."

"I'm sorry, Anna," Alex gave her a quick hug, "Is Kimani here?"

"Yeah. She left yesterday but I saw her this morning. I think she's inside."

"Thanks."

A brilliant smile lit up her face, "I'm very happy to see you again, Martin."

They said their piece, and Wolf followed Alex as he made his way to undoubtedly the Marquis boy's house. At his unasked question, Alex told him Marquis knew the streets, and occasionally Alex asked him for some quick shortcuts or info around the town to better navigate his mission. They became friends.

The boy was war casualty, Wolf realized dimly. Caught on the wrong side of the dirty espionage. Not that there was a right side, to begin with.

"Martin?" Kimani opened her door on the second lock hesitantly, her eyes flickering from Alex's face to Wolf's before settling back on Alex's, "Oh, you look horrible. Please. Please come in. You too, boy." That was directed at him.

The woman tugged Alex's unresisting figure into the house and Wolf shut the door behind them. It was a small rather run-down house in comparison to Alex's, but there was something homely that Alex's house lacked on some days when the owner was out on missions. Tattered pictures were hung on the wall, some with a frame and some without. Those without were fading out, weathered away by years. Kimani made them sit, then she passed them small cups of water.

If Wolf had been expecting her to apologize for lack of better courtesy, he was disappointed. Alex didn't seem to mind the plainness of it as he thanked her and settled down on the ripped coach.

"I didn't know what came over me," Kimani said softly, "I shouldn't have come to bother you. But I just wanted to know what happened to my dear boy."

"It's alright. He was your son. You had every right," Alex set his plastic cup down on the floor and leaned closer, gripping her hand like a son would grip his mother's hand.

Wolf was surprised at the gesture and he hid it well.

"As soon as I find my memories, I'll tell you everything I know."

The reassurance was fake to Wolf's ears, so similar to all those he had heard Snake uttered to the fallen soldiers, promising that they would make it home and he would make sure of it. But Kimani seemed to believe in the young man as she gave his hand a squeeze and pulled him in for a quick hug and a whispered thanks.

It wasn't that Wolf didn't believe in Alex recovering his memory. It was that, whatever it was, he wasn't sure Alex would want to remember. The young spy had forgotten the death of his friend and the passing of the one person he held dearest in the world, Wolf wasn't keen to know what more he had forgotten. Was it the tip of the iceberg, or was it the worst of it all? If that was the worst, Wolf could deal with it. Give Alex time, make him attend therapy, have talks with Snake, and all the tough-love procedures. It would definitely take time, but Alex could learn to accept what he had already begun to accept.

What if it wasn't the worst? What if it was just the tip of the tip? It would take him longer if they had to discover what he couldn't even remember.

What if someone else had died?

God knew what other incidents could befall the young spy.

Alex was a spy. A young man. Barely over the legal age. He wasn't a cold-blooded assassin. He couldn't line his scope up to anyone and kill without a second thought. God, Wolf was sure Alex would give a wince in sympathy for the wild grass if Eagle began to weed out the wild field that was his front yard.

"So," Wolf prompted as they sat down underneath the black umbrellas, Alex picking away at his sandwich, "Let's begin with your mission. It will help narrow our routes down. What happened four months ago?"

"Well, you see,"Alex threw the onion rings in his sandwich onto the paper plate beneath his hand, "An organization was brought up to our attention regarding drug trafficking under the pretense of an orphanage and off I went…"

* * *

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

A.N.: It's been 35 days since I last updated. I'm so sorry, guys. I got a great excuse though: school. Yup, did that explain everything? No, okay, if I add procrastination, will that help?

3 weeks into school, I'm already pretty dead, and this chapter was written over the span of these 3 weeks. I know some of you guys sleep at like 2 in the morning and gets up two hours later (geez), but seriously, I sleep at 11 and gets up at 6, which is a good healthy 7 hours of sleep, but I'm still tired like unbelievably tired for some weird reasons.

But anyway, yes, I'm done. I hope this chapter will make your day, because seeing it finally come to a finale really did make my day. Can you believe it? Woohoo!

* * *

Standing beneath the large palm tree and with sand beneath their boots, Alex turned to Wolf. "This is where I met Marquis."

His reminiscence came out strangely calm as if he had emerged into a ray of sunshine after a violent harsh storm. Wolf eyed the young spy gingerly, wondering if it would take the young man a few days more before the two deaths could finally sink in. Sink _back_ in. It was catching on, all right. Alex's hands were moving again: from a fist to slack against his side, then back to a fist. Clench. Unclench.

"Stop that," Wolf said, his eyes snapping to Alex's hands. "Nothing's gonna change if you don't change yourself."

The young spy sighed and his hands fell to a stop at the command, "It's like a nightmare I can't wake up from." His boots grounded against the sand and gravels, and they grunted in muffled protests. "They're just snippets. I can't…I still can't remember everything. I try to remember, but it doesn't work that way. It's only when I'm not trying that they come back, bits and pieces at a time. From the worst to…the least worst, I suppose."

"The woman, Kimani, what if she doesn't really want to know how her son died?" Wolf asked as he followed Alex, the young spy turned and stepped over the stone that separated the sandy beach from the road. Clusters of sand had formed just over the wall, marking the footsteps of the many pedestrians that had had the same intentions as them. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her. Truth is a burden that not many want to carry."

"She needs closure," Alex shook his head, their feet taking them past the first block from the beach. "It's gonna hurt, I know. She knows that too. And I need to know that I did everything I could to save her son. It's for her as much as it's for me."

 _And for you_ , Alex's eyes said it all when he turned to spare a sideways glance. Or perhaps Wolf had imagined it. He offered the spy a grim smile in acknowledgment. Alex had yet to mention Sabina since they left Kimani's house, and Wolf had the feeling that despite Alex's fixated attention on young Marquis's death, his adoptive sister's death was haunting his every step and stalking every alcove of his mind, whispering to be heard and to be dealt with. While they could scavenge for truth in the wind for Marquis's death, they couldn't for Sabina. She was a complete story, there was no more truth, or lies, to be discovered. They could only face it head-on.

"I never told you about the reason behind my…," Alex glanced down at his clenched hands, " _problem_."

"You don't have to," he shook his head. Wolf knew the truth already, and he didn't need Alex to go through it again. Alex looked as if he was about to, despite the soft refusal, so Wolf bluntly cut him off before he could start, "I know."

Followed by a stunned silence was a hesitant "how?"

They stopped walking but Wolf wasn't sure if it was their mind, or their feet, that really pulled them to a stop. Perhaps it was both. Or perhaps it was neither.

"I," he begun then paused, debating for a second if it was worth it to break it to the young spy—it was too late, he was already doing it. "I talked with Edward. He told me what happened."

"Ah…I see."

"It wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't." To his surprise, Alex agreed, albeit the inflections in his tone dark and anything but in agreement. "But I could've stopped him. Edward might've told you what…happened, but you don't know how I _feel_." He took a breath. "She turned, and I saw her eyes trying to flicker open. She moved, I know she did, and I felt my heart in my mouth."

Alex's hands reached up, rubbing his throat as the young spy swallowed. "And Edward, I don't know, I don't know why, but he just shot her. He wanted to her life to go peacefully, so she wouldn't suffocate to death. He wanted what's the best for her, I know that. But neither of us really saw it coming, and it just doesn't…" Alex struggled for words. "Just doesn't go away. It's just _so_ messed up, Wolf, and I don't know what I did to deserve this—or what _she_ did to deserve that."

The only thing that Wolf could think of as Alex slowly exhaled his tormented words was that the young spy was recovering his memories faster than Wolf would've hoped. Or wanted, for that matter. Maybe it was survivor's guilt, that he somehow lived while his sister died. Or perhaps it was just guilt in general, that his sister died. Or the stages of grief. Or shock. Wolf wasn't sure he knew what to do—Snake might, because he was the medic of the team—for what he was trained to do wasn't to stop and care about fallen comrades. Broke protocol and one down became three dead.

Screw that.

Suddenly, Wolf wished he hadn't been so rush in accompanying Alex on this trip down the memory lane. He should've lugged the whole K-Unit along because Alex had always been so used to dealing with K-Unit as a whole, and not as individuals. Snake was the medic, Eagle the one to spice up the mood, Fox would offer empathetic conversations that only the two spies could understand, and Wolf dealt with keeping them in order. And K-Unit, together, kept Alex from falling.

Falling…into what?

The answer came like second instinct.

Falling into who he once was before their meeting.

Sometimes, he wondered what Alex brought to the table. Then he would dismiss the absurdity of the thought. Because that was what friends were: they brought nothing to the table besides friendship and their flaws, but that was all that they needed. Wolf wasn't helping Alex because he himself needed closure; he was helping the young spy because they were friends. Comrades. It was as simple as that, just like every day on the battlefield. He didn't stop to help his fallen teammates because they were the best sharpshooter, or that they could mend wounds, or change the tide, or anything. They were friends, and that was enough words for him to go to the end of the world and back for them.

Alex better damn appreciates that while Wolf was still sentiment.

Wolf didn't like being sentiment, overbearing and over-caring like clucking mother hens. And Alex didn't seem to appreciate it either.

"Why are you helping me?" asked Alex.

It was night, and they had barely settled into their respective hotel bed before an insomniac Alex turned on his side. His voice shattered across the darkened room from the other bed like alarm clocks shattered across the morning silence.

"Go to sleep, Cub." Wolf turned dismissively so his unwavering back faced the questioning young agent. Because drowsy Wolf wasn't awake Wolf, and he didn't want to know what kind of crap that might come out of his mouth if he were to answer Alex's innocuous question honestly.

"I mean, we don't always go out of our way to help each other. So why now? You don't strike me as someone who wants to spread kindness and joy around."

"That's Eagle." They both snorted at Wolf's reply. Wolf heard the young spy turning and a clear sigh that escaped Alex told him the other occupant was now facing the ceiling.

"To think, four years ago, that I'd even live under the same roof as you bastards. Time flies, huh."

"Go to sleep, Cub. I don't do pillow talk." As soon as the words fell out of his mouth, Wolf knew he had thrown himself into the perfect trap of 'you're already doing it'. He winced and waited for the sarcastic reply.

It didn't come despite his apprehension. "I was thinking...Maybe I should just go visit Sabina's grave. It might help." _Or it might not_.

The unspoken thought lingered uncomfortably in the air as it pulled them into the land of dreamless sleep. It was uncanny, Wolf thought, how he was able to sense Alex's silent thoughts without looking at the young man. Or perhaps it was his own thought that he imposed on the agent. Or perhaps it wasn't. Alex was right: time flew. Because he was sure that four years ago when they first met on that dreary Selection, he wasn't going to see Alex again after the moment the young spy shook his hand and stepped out of his life. Certainly not taking a bullet for him months later. And definitely not a cringe-worthy get-well card months after that. But most of all, never the sense of uncontrolled worry when Alex got himself in another one of his typical heart-before-head actions.

Alex worked well on his own, but sometimes he needed to know that the world wasn't always against him. Sure, the young spy was a trouble magnet—Wolf certainly did not want to live the life Alex had (spies, soldiers, secrets, deception)—but on a calm peaceful day, the magnet could simply stay where it was. Full. Untouched. Unmoved. Solid. Just…being himself. And stop being so insecure about the world.

"Do you still want the answer?" Wolf's voice startled Alex out of his reverie of staring at his hotel-serviced breakfast in silence.

"The answer? To what?"

"You asked me why I was helping you." Wolf shrugged as he picked up his own burger and bit into the edge. It was too rich for his liking.

The spy hesitated. Then he shook his head with a soft exhale through his nose. "No. Maybe not. Not today."

Good. Because Wolf wasn't sure what he was going to say if Alex had said yes. He was still discovering the answer himself.

They left their room minutes later with Wolf's plate half-eaten and Alex's clean. Alex remembered most of the important bits of his mission leading up to Marquis's death, and Wolf was glad they didn't have to fight the same battle Alex fought to retrieve lost memories. Too many variables in the mission and too many things could alter the equation. Wolf preferred that they retrace Alex's footsteps step by steps with the original.

Alex made Wolf call him Martin, just in case. Martin. The name didn't fit Alex. Probably because Alex was Alex, and Martin wasn't Alex. All they had in common was the letter 'a', and not even in the same place. Martin was two letters more of Alex. Two additional layers that completely disguised Alex, except for that one single letter…In a sense, Martin was Alex; a different Alex, maybe, but he _was_ Alex.

From the kids and people they met on the street that knew Alex, Wolf found that despite Martin's careful disguises, Alex was slowly uncovered the deeper they dug. Their back stories were worlds-apart—Martin was the youngest brother of a family of five, ran away because he was fed up of the way he was treated—however, they didn't stop Martin from being Alex. His words were lies, but his tones were truths. And Wolf saw through it clear as day.

Perhaps that was how Fox managed to see right through Alex's disguise on their first, unforeseen, mission together.

Was that why Alex trusted Fox? Because the man knew who he was in spite of all his facades?

"We're spies," said an amused Alex, shrugging when Wolf voiced his question, "I trust him because we saved each other's lives. Probably too many times than either of us wanted to."

"So have the rest of K-Unit."

"...Are you _jealous_ , Wolf?" The cheeky bastard grinned then rolled his eyes. "Look, I've known Fox longer, and better, than I know you guys. But don't worry Wolf, someday we'll have a great sleepover together."

Alex called him and the rest of K-Unit by their code names more often he did with their real name. If at all. But it was almost _always_ 'Ben' when it came to Fox. He might felt something other than the foreboding sense of childish jealousy if the name 'Wolf' was a nickname and not a formal business name. After three years of saving the young agent's life, Wolf thought he at least deserved some sort of recognition.

Wolf sighed.

They stopped at a construction site and Alex told him that was the place. Of what, the young spy didn't need to voice out loud. Pieces of tattered crime scene tapes were strewn across the site, barely doing anything to keep out anyone and Wolf wasn't sure if that was the intention anymore. The construction had clearly taken up its tools again for the small trucks at the back were humming ambiently in the stifled afternoon air. They had no rhythms, no abruptness, like the sounds of cars rushing by the highway with no way to distinguish the individuality of them all.

"How're you gonna remember?"

Alex's eyes were on the stain on the ground next to a pile of freshly removed debris. "That's a lot of blood."

"Think it was yours?" That was a disturbing thing to say, and the young spy clearly thought so as well for Alex glanced at him with an arched eyebrow.

Alex kicked away the large rocks that covered the edges of the blood before sitting down, not caring if the dust would stain his dark shorts. Then he laid down, his head on the ground and his sunglasses shielding his eyes from the glaring rays.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to relive the moment."

Wolf snorted, escaping into the shade of the shaded overhead paces away to leave Alex to his absurdity. Reliving, huh. He wasn't a neurologist or whatever '-gist' that could explain the concept behind memory loss, and he certainly wasn't sure if lying down in a pool of dried blood would really trigger the memories to return.

He would rather Alex _relieve_ the memory instead of reliving it. People forget for a reason, and Wolf didn't think it was for them to remember. Going on some sort of daunting 'heroic' quest to find what was lost was probably not the goal of life. But who was he to decide what was right and what was wrong?

Was being 'good' right? Being 'bad' wrong? Wolf wasn't sure he understood the concept behind the tropes of 'save the world' that was essentially the bane of existence to almost every other plot out there. Everyone was a hero in their story—their _own_ story. Wolf didn't want to be the hero in anybody else's. If saving people, sacrificing himself for the alleged greater good, pulling people out of their misery, and all that bullshit was what people called 'right', Wolf would rather be wrong. The thought of having to always be there to save the day was daunting and downright horrifying, to say the least.

Good thing he wasn't a hero.

He was just…a friend.

"Ben called." The sound of the phone snapping shut had him turning. "He asked if we're gonna be back home in time for dinner."

"Well, depends on what we can find with your retrieved memories." Wolf shrugged as he leaned back against the chair. The shades before his eyes dimmed the world dark, and he could barely see his reflection in Alex's mirroring sunglasses.

He couldn't see the young spy's eyes, but then, he didn't need to see into the troubled depths to feel Alex's raging turmoil of emotions.

Marquis had died on the last day of Alex's mission. It was supposed to be a final bidding of goodbye. Just the two strangers-turned-friends going over everything that had happened in the short two months. Or long two months. Alex told him the organization rounded up boys and girls about his age and younger to provide a carrier for their drug trafficking. The young spy didn't use the word _carrier_ —that was Wolf's gentler version of the brutal word 'host' that Alex threw at him. The drugs weren't on them. They were _in_ them.

The thought of it made Wolf sick all over again.

The young black boy was Alex's informant. Marquis knew the streets, and the people, but he didn't know just how dangerous they were. It was naive of the parents to tell their child that something was dangerous and expected the innocent curious child to simply stay away from it. Fear ruled better, and stronger than loyalty sometimes. But it wasn't danger that took the young boy's life. It was their careless action and Alex's callow belief that nothing bad was going to happen on the last day that got his friend killed.

It had been an act of revenge by the scattered organization. Some sick last-ditched take at the classic 'taking them down with us'.

"Is that everything you wanted to know?" Wolf asked. The hot bench burned his arms at his every attempt to settle the limb somewhere on the metal. In the end, he forced the stinging sensation into the back of his mind and waited it out. "You now have everything you need to tell Marquis's mother."

"What if there's something more?"

"What?"

"I can't shake the feeling that there's something else that I forgot."

Wolf cast his eyes over. "If it's about the Star Wars movies you hated, you might be better off not remembering."

"That's a waste of a good nine quid." Alex rolled his eyes with a mocking huff.

"Well, at least you remembered the cost of the ticket. That's something."

"Yeah…" Sighing, the young spy tugged at the sleeves of his shirt to flick off the ladybug that had landed there. "After I got staked in the stomach, they stitched me up. I should've been back home half a month earlier but instead, I slipped into a pond or something and I nearly died."

"What do you want to say?"

"I woke up, and I was in the same hospital room that I was in before. Same doctor. Same nurses. Same everything."

"But…?"

"They said I drowned—this place is famous for its hot weather and beautiful beach, but infamous for the utter lack of other sources of water. If I know where I drowned, and go for a quick dip, I might know more."

"And where's that?"

"The hospital has a pool."

Wolf snorted. It wasn't just at the absolute absurdity Alex was suggesting but also that Alex had managed to slip and drown (and very nearly completely die) in a pool. A _hospital_ pool of all pools and places. Hell, Wolf wasn't even aware that hospitals had pools to begin. But with Alex? Nothing could be deemed a 'safe' playground for him, making it a wonder for Wolf as to how the hell the kid even managed to keep being a spy after all these years.

While many served their country for patriotic reasons, Wolf didn't see the patriotism in Alex. He couldn't imagine the young spy standing on the top of the world declaring his devotion to the country and willingness to lay his life at the Mother's feet. Perhaps he was a tad too dramatic in his thoughts, but they were justified: whenever they gravitated toward Alex's reason to being a spy, light-hearted sarcasm and humor attacked their questions. Sharp humor and sarcasm was the young spy's defense to everything the world fast-pitched at him, they all knew that.

Therapy with Alex was similar to a comedy-drama to bystanders but could be an utter fuse-lighter in second-person perspective. It was funny, and it sure drew laughter from K-Unit, when they listened in on the young spy's session post-missions, but Snake pointed out that Alex was only pushing things further and deeper down in the dark bottomless pit. _Abyss_ , that was the word Snake used, because abyss _had_ a bottom. In the end, when they finally realized that Alex wasn't going to open up to them with some crappy heart-to-heart therapeutic talk about his emotions unless it had evolved to a catastrophic level, Snake decided to throw on some sad gut-wrenching movies whenever Alex engulfed himself in dark grey clouds. Even if the tears shed weren't for himself but for the fictional characters separated by boundaries of dimensions, they did notice the look of the world on his shoulder lessened on the spy's face.

If Alex realized their ploy to get him to get all emotional and cry his heart out, he didn't point them out. Perhaps he finally realized their good intents, and their intention to repay him for what he had done for them post their own traumatizing missions. None of them could sleep at night, and when they finally sat down at dead in the night, they would find Alex in the kitchen who would then shove a cup in their hand and let the welcoming warmth fight away the cold shivers their nightmares sent down their body.

That was when they knew they were home. Home. Not with their blood-tied family, not with their distant once-a-year girlfriends, but not without any of them. Their ragtag group made up the equally unorganized family and if Wolf was asked years ago, he would have never thought about this future.

Future. Past. Funny how people were constantly focused on their future, fearing, hoping, praying, and they brushed the past away once they lost their meaning. It reminded him of Alex preying on the candy jar, feet up on the coffee table and head back on the sofa as he sucked on the flavors—he could only savor for so long before it was gone, leaving only the faintest scent behind before it too move to occupy elsewhere.

Then there was Alex, trying to remember the feeling of it on the tip of his tongue, hoping to find the right one that would make his eyes light up like the shower of morning rays light up the dimly grey sky and say 'this is the one'. Watching the young spy stepped into the warm outdoor hospital poor, clad modestly in his shirt and shorts, Wolf couldn't help but doubt his methods.

"Are you lost, sir?"

"Oh, no." Turning to refuse the offer from the passing nurse, Wolf shook his head. "I'm just waiting."

They exchanged words, formality more or less before she went on her way with him convincing her that he did not need any assistance. When he turned back, Alex was waist-deep in water with his hands above the water, wading through the persistent liquid hesitantly. Crossing his arms, Wolf leaned back into the shade the looming umbrellas threw around the chairs.

Besides them, there was a woman slicing back and forth through the two ends of the water, two children sitting on the edge with their feet in the water, and an elderly man soaking in the sun at the pool. Out of place was Wolf's immediate thought as he shifted again, but perhaps they were at exactly where they needed to be. The pool wasn't a recreation center, and it visibly lacked the delightful screams and the brightly colored toys that adorned the water. The pool was at rest like all the other occupants were, and only the rhythmic periodic movements from the occupants disturbed the peace.

The locks of the young spy's dirty blond hair at the nape of his neck dipped beneath the surface gently as Alex's feet carried him to the deeper end. Even if from where Wolf sat he couldn't see the rest of his body, he could picture the water pushing the young spy up until he was on his tiptoes.

What was Alex trying to do? Hold his breath, open his eyes, and hoped memories would flash before him like people said it would for a dying man?

It reminded him of the poem Alex recited to him months and months ago for his school: The Art of Drowning. It had caught his attention and ensnared his memory, even if Alex had probably forgotten the words of it. The author mocked the utterly unrealistic expectation of these 'flashes'. The expressed skepticism at the flashes of memories had had himself pondering his actions at his last moment. Would he actually see flashes? Would he see the face of everyone he had ever met, ever loved, and ever cared about appearing before him as if sending him a farewell? It seemed absurd, but it had his mind drifting off to the tunnel-vision humans harbored since forever.

Why would he only appreciate what he had when he was about to lose them? Why would people begin to appreciate what they had had only when it was gone?

He was guilty of it nevertheless. Wolf could count with his fingers the number of times he had prayed to God for a miracle for something that was so far out of his control. Amongst them, he needed only one finger to count the number of times he had prayed to God to bring him back home safely. He had learned to appreciate the present, the people he had, and the things he had, but Wolf wasn't sure he had ever told them just how much they mattered. He just hoped they knew. And was that what all the other people were thinking as well? Because they were too afraid to appear to be weak in front of others that they kept their emotions to themselves?

It was then Wolf realized Alex's head was fully submerged, the top of his head barely visible beneath the water. The woman at the edge stopped to take a deep breath, shattering the serenity of the water shifting with and against itself.

Then the sound of water erupting and spilling onto the dry land accompanied Alex's loud gasp for air as he shot out of the water. The pool seemed to have washed away the color from his face by a few degrees, and it forced Wolf to stand up to investigate.

"You okay?"

"It's not working." Alex brushed the plastered hair away from his forehead. The shirt stuck to his body but his shorts were floating like wild reefs under the water. "Should I hold my breath longer?"

"I don't even want to answer that question," was Wolf's darkly muttered reply. "Why can't you just enjoy a good soak in the pool? You know, feel the water or some psychological crap. Anyway, I'll go talk with your doctor, maybe they'd know something. What's the name?"

"Um, Dr. Hayes. Zachariah Hayes."

"Okay, stay here. Soak the water, splash with the kids, and try not to drown, alright?"

The way Alex rolled his eyes before moving to the shallow ends to sit with his shoulder barely beneath the water, accompanied by an exasperated "fine", reminded Wolf painstakingly of a child.

Dr. Hayes was a man in his mid-forties, his hair a perfect shade of blond, and when he glanced up at his name, his green eyes shimmered up like starlight shimmered in moonlit pools as they left the clipboard he held in his arms. Before Wolf could say his second sentence past greeting, the man suggested they walk and talk. Each doctor had their own unique presence, some walked with a special gait, some talked with a lift in their tone, and some saw right through their patients. Wolf wasn't a people-reader, but he didn't miss the way the man did an immediate assessment on him, his grip tighter when they shook hands as if testing his grip, and his eyes linger seconds longer on the littered scars.

Of course. Why would Alex be under the care of just any doctor? Wolf received the impression that Alex had been too wounded to be airlifted back to the military hospital, but to have simply left a bleeding teenager in a neighborhood hospital? People would've asked questions. Unless the people weren't just _any_ people.

"So how can I help you…Wolf?"

"Do you remember a patient you had weeks ago named Martin?"

"Ah." The man's eyes were a blank slate despite the brilliance. "I'm sorry, but I'm under a doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. I cannot disclose any information about any of my patients."

"You were his doctor. You operated on him, so you definitely knew who he really is. And had the security clearance for it too."

The first flash of warning seeped into the man's eyes. "I'm sorry—"

"He's a friend." Wolf sighed before the man's thoughts could travel to the infinitely many possibilities of Wolf being a threat to the espionage world. "I'm a soldier, SAS, and I know what he does. Look, he suffers from memory loss, from the drowning incident, and he's trying to remember everything that happened by reciprocating the events that happened."

Still suspicious of his words, the doctor returned. "Doctor-Patient confidentiality, sorry."

"Well, he's by the pool. That's where he nearly died. I told him to try not to drown himself while I come talk to you. Maybe you can try talking to him since I didn't have time to go through a medical career and understand how our brain magnificently works."

They were walking past the hallway with pure glass window, and Wolf noticed with a subtle grin the way the doctor peered down to take note of the figures at the nearly-vacant pool beneath. From the third floor, Alex wasn't hard to spot. He was pulling himself out of the pool with agility and shaking his head like a dog post-bath, droplets of water too small to be seen from where they were flying everywhere.

Alex was a dog person, they all knew that, but despite Eagle's numerous attempt to convince Alex that they needed a pet in the house, Alex hadn't budged on his solid 'no'. It wasn't that Alex was afraid of animals—Wolf had seen the way Alex stopped on the streets to dog-watch like some sort of lovesick fangirl—but rather, the young spy thought too much into the future. Who would take care of it when they were on missions? Wolf remembered Alex's frown that accompanied the question as he squashed Eagle's suggestion the seventh time he asked. Dogs didn't have the century-long lifespan that humans did, and when he watched the young spy's face as he said it, he had understood the reason behind his reluctance.

People often married for love, hoping an oath and a ring would keep their special someone close. _Til death do us part_. Alex was eighteen now, and having a dog would mean he would probably be there when the creature took the final breath. What was the average life expectancy for dogs? Ten, fifteen, years? He had searched that up months ago when Alex got annoyed and told them he didn't want to watch his dog die.

Eagle then promptly told him maybe it would be his dog watching him die instead of the other way. That shouldn't have been a funny joke—it had been nothing more than a tease, back then, at Alex's increase in accidents—and it certainly wasn't right now as he watched the young spy fall backward into the pool, counted to eighty-five in his head, and locks of dirty blond hair still yet to come up.

"Cub!" At the eighty-sixth second, Wolf flung open the last door to the pool and dove into the water, shirt pants shoes all. The only conscience action he did was to chuck down the phone in his back pocket.

The tepid water slowly engulfed him, grabbing his hair in all directions, and threatened to blind his eyes as his narrowed gaze focused on the unmoving body sinking like the Titanic: slow, graceful, like a martyr. Wolf felt as if he hadn't swum for a long time for his ears popped as he dove deeper to grab onto the young spy. Then thousands upon thousands of invisible needles stabbed into his ears as he landed in a crouch on the ground, grabbed the spy, and kicked off the floor to propel the both of them upward and broke through the water surface.

Something that Titanic never got to do.

The woman screamed, the old man opened his eyes, and the children hesitantly huddled closer while trying to peek past Wolf's figure to take a glimpse at the teen. He pushed him onto the warm solid ground, tugged only by gravity, before pushing himself up and kneeling next to him.

Pulse. No pulse. No. _Pulse_.

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen—

"C'mon, _breathe_."

Seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one—

"Swear to _God_ if you don't breathe…"

Twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six—

"C'mon, c'mon, Alex."

Twenty-eight twenty-nine _thirty_.

He tilted the spy's head back and moved the chin. One breath. Chest didn't rise. Wolf readjusted the position. Second breath.

It rose. Oh, _thank god_.

One two three four—

He didn't get to five before Alex was choking, and Wolf turned him onto his side in a hurry even as someone was trying to pull him aside and the professionals began to swarm them. "It's okay. You're okay. Deep breath, Cub. Breathe—no, no, it's okay. It's Wolf—breathe for me. Breathe for me."

"Coming through. Sir, sir, please take a step back. We've got him. Sir."

Arms pulled him back and away from the agent. "Fuck off! I got him—"

"Hey," It was the doctor, "You said you don't have the whole medical school background, so let the professionals take care of it, alright? You've done everything you can, and he's alive because of you. Let us handle the rest."

Alive because of him?

Wolf stumbled back as they pulled the agent onto the stretcher and rushed into the hospital.

"Let's get you something dry to change into." Dr. Hayes jerked his head toward the building in the opposite direction of the door that Alex had disappeared behind. At Wolf's rooted feet, he added. "C'mon. They will page me when they're done; they know I'm his doctor."

"...Alright."

The doctor's spared clothing fitted a few centimeters larger on his frame, but Wolf was grateful to get out of the dripping shirts and pants. His shoes were still wet, but he kept it on anyway. This wasn't a mission gone wrong, Wolf told himself as he threw a towel over his head. Alex wasn't bleeding out, they weren't running, they were in a hospital, and Alex was going to be fine in just a few seconds. But Wolf couldn't help but feel the sense of foreboding crawling up his skin, jeering and taunting the thoughts of 'what ifs'. What if he had been seconds too late? What if Alex's chest didn't rise on the second breath? What if Alex didn't make it the second time?

But why didn't Alex fight back?

"You asked me about his memory loss, I'm sorry for not answering you earlier."

"I don't want to listen to you talk right now, I'm sorry." Wolf wasn't sorry. "Will you…can I just sit in silence? I don't want to think right now."

He took a seat on the proffered sofa in the man's office, his feet itching to leap up and rush to Alex's side. The doctor reminded him of Fox. The way they both refused his need to see Alex, and Wolf could only pray the doctor wasn't about to drug him. Alex was going to be fine. It was just some water. Pool water. Chlorine and some crap. He was only under for a little less than two minutes. Alex knew how to hold his breath.

Why didn't he fight back?

Wolf nearly jumped when his phone rang. The doctor turned to grab it from the table before handing it to the soldier.

"Hey Wolf, how's it going?"

"Fox, I'll call you back."

"...Lemme guess: something went wrong."

"Alex." The doctor didn't seem at all fazed when Wolf said the name. "Nearly died. We're at the hospital right now. I'll call you back as soon as I know more."

"So he's okay?"

"I don't know. He was alive."

"But he's okay?"

"Yeah. He's okay."

Wolf wanted to slam the phone shut and chuck it across the room but Fox didn't intend to end the conversation just yet. "And you?"

"Me?"

"You okay?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Cub nearly died. And you're asking me if _I_ 'm okay?"

"Previously on _Alex Underwent Surgery with You Behind the Doors_ , I had to drug you before your hyperactive neurons can shoot you dead from the inside out. So excuse me if I'm wondering if I need to fly over there and drug you again."

"I'm fine." Wolf exhaled in exasperation. Then he took a deeper breath, feeling the air reaching the top of his lung before he exhaled. It felt nice. "How are things?"

"Things are great. Hey Wolf?"

"What?"

"It's almost June."

"Yeah." Whatever that meant. "Listen, I'll call you back."

"Okay. Call me as soon as you get anything. I'm not gonna tell the other guys just yet, but if things get worse, I'm letting them know."

"Good call. Thanks."

Fox smiled. "No problem."

The sound of solid tone hit him softer this time, and Wolf gingerly snapped the phone shut. He supposed he still wanted to fling it across the room, but…Alex was going to be okay. And if the young spy even dared to say he wanted to continue the memory search, he was going to personally slam the case-closed stamp on Alex's head. It was like time travel because trying to find the lost history was similar to altering the history: dangerous, daunting, and irreversible. Alex had already remembered the deaths, he didn't need to dig up more things. He didn't need the past any more than he needed more guilt to gnaw away his brain. If the things he lost were happiness, screw it, they could make more. They could make happiness, if that was what Alex wanted, they could make sadness, joy, anger, frustration, annoyance, excitement, _anything_.

Wolf didn't believe in God, but he was perfectly willing to let God take the blame of it. Perhaps it was some silly _fate_ that erased Alex's memory, and if that was what God intended, so be it. He would take an alive but brooding Alex over a dead and silent Alex. Wounds could heal, there would be trials, and errors, and then victory. Unlike errors, they needed only one victory.

Who dares wins. Alex just needed to take that leap of faith.

Faith. _Ah_. Wolf supposed Alex had always taken that leap. He was the one who flew down buildings instead of using stairs, the one that dared to mess up the rendezvous exfil time, and the one who took things into his own hands when it got rough and, ironically, _out_ of his hands. Wolf wasn't surprised at the self-confidence. Alex had always had faith in himself, he believed in himself and that he could somehow maneuver out of every situation.

Perhaps it was because every other second he was alone, battling the world. He grew up with an uncle whose increase absence and death finally led to the reveal of the dark truth of their family, a housekeeper who died because of the truth, and his adoptive family who slowly disintegrated into nothing. It was simple: Alex had issues with interpersonal connection. And hell, with anything. He was just so afraid that he was going to lose them that he tried so hard to not get close to them at all.

But Alex trusted them. Now they just needed to convince Alex to take that leap of faith _with_ them. Before that, Wolf had to persuade Alex to stop chasing the past.

"You nearly died. _Again_."

Alex fiddled with the edge of the gown they had fit him into. "I remembered."

Wolf opened his mouth to shut the agent down, but in the end, he sighed wearily. "Anything important?"

"No." Alex didn't even bother to at least try to sound convincing. "Did you talk to Dr. Hayes? When can I be discharged?"

He went to get the doctor and left the two to talk. Alex, apparently, was lucky that he hadn't suffered any brain damage due to the oxygen deprivation. All thanks to Wolf and the eighty-one seconds he had counted in his head. He didn't want to think about what if he had been minutes too late, seconds too late, and Alex ended up forgetting more than he had remembered. Sometimes, he thought maybe Alex had just never thought of him as someone who had feelings. Why couldn't Alex realize that every time the kid took a nosedive down the cliff of stupidity, Wolf was always the one to catch him? Experiences didn't necessarily make it easy, and Wolf was afraid that one day he wouldn't be able to catch him.

Months and years ago, the only thing he worried about was being there, gas pumped and vehicle readied, waiting for Alex at their rendezvous location and worrying what if he couldn't catch him. Now, he was being dragged by Alex's lifeline, selfishly wanting to let go but at the same time, not wanting to think about the consequences.

For once, he just wanted a year of absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. No secrets, no lies, no six-months missions, no dead relatives, no blood, no hospital, and no wounded souls. The first thing he did once the two lugged their luggage through the familiar front door was ordered Alex to bed despite the sun being high-up in the sky and the air hot and stifling like a silent wail.

The spy didn't argue.

"How's Alex?" Fox asked worriedly as they seated themselves in the kitchen.

"Hasn't said more than two words since we left the hospital."

Wolf had secretly hoped that Fox and Alex's spy relationship would help convince the young agent to say his all understood the pain of bereavement, having smelled the coppery air one too many times, but Wolf wasn't sure if he would understand the difficulties the spies had to overcome in their career. Espionage wasn't a game of overpowering, it was a game of strategy. Sneak in, sneak out, and if possible not even stirring the blades of grass beneath their feet. SAS? Oh boy, they were there to make about as much noise as possible, storm the hideouts, grab the package, and anyone who stood a toe in their way got a double tap for their trouble.

Alex wasn't one for violence; Fox had told Wolf of Alex's first kill, his clone, Julius Grief. But Wolf supposed it was so much worse than shooting a man dead. It had been shooting himself, and a piece of him had probably died along when the body crumpled onto the ground. Even if the young spy's hands were still untainted of blood, his mind was already haunted by violence.

What was Alex gaining from this whole tilted line of work? What did Alex want to become back when he was thirteen? What would he have become if MI6 hadn't dragged the boy into their mess?

Wolf shut his eyes. Dragged? No, Alex was naturally curious. He might have been forced into the first mission, but he had voluntarily gone back to MI6 after he had… _left_ the Pleasures. He didn't blame Alex for doing it. He had no one, after all, to go back to. Or go _to_. And that made Alex almost a ward of the Intelligence unit. Was it by choice? Was Alex content with it? He thought he remembered Alex saying he was. Wolf didn't know.

But there were a lot of things he didn't know.

"Have you ever feel so _done_ with everything?"

"Every morning waking up to Eagle's cooking." Fox rolled his eyes as he remarked, earning glare from the sharpshooter. "Why?"

Alex's question seemed harmless, but Wolf watched the young spy through the top of his mug as he took a sip of his tea. It had been a week, and Alex had gradually begun to offer more in their typical casual conversations. Fox told him Alex hadn't said anything about what he remembered, only that drowning was a horrible thing.

 _Horrible_. Funny that the teen described it that way, because of all that eighty-one seconds, Alex didn't fight for his life. What was Alex trying to achieve by drowning himself again? Was dying a good price to pay for remembering? Remembering, after all, was only split seconds worth of emotions in comparison to dying. Dying was an eternity worth of void. Though Wolf surely wasn't one to talk afterlife with his atheist attitude and independence of the superior figure.

There were a lot of things Alex could live for if not for the past. _The future_ , for example. Blows after blows, Alex just had to get up and get over it. That was what life was: it had no ultimate destination, no plans. But one thing it wasn't was an _endless_ loop of suffering. There was an end to everything, and it was simply the question of what were they going to do before the end. Did Alex really want to spend his whole life chasing what he had had, or crafting what he would have?

Suddenly, he knew what to say.

"I have not. I've never felt so done with anything." Wolf set down his cup, daring Alex to turn to face him fully. "I grew up in a happy family. They supported my every decision, even to join the SAS. I knew what I wanted to do, and I aimed for it."

None of the rest of K-Unit expected him to answer the question with the seriousness in his tone, but Alex's eyes dimmed before they returned to the light dull.

The burning question of why Alex hadn't fight back tormented him for a whole week before he finally got the answer as he continued.

"Things are hard sometimes, but I've never felt like giving up on everything and just be done with life. I lost friends to the endless warfare, and I lost people I loved due to my job. You think you've nothing left to live for, but if you can just see past the tunnel-vision, you'll realize that you have a _lot_ to live for."

"Wow, that's deep, Wolf." That bloody humor of the spy's.

"I'm serious, Alex."

"Sure, Mr. Therapy." Alex's lips quirked up in a small smile before he glanced away. "Hey, I'm gonna go to San Francisco next week. Do you want to come?"

"San Francisco? Why?"

"Sabina's supposed to be graduating today. If she were alive."

Wolf didn't know why Alex asked him for permission, but he gave it anyway. Perhaps this was the last goodbye Alex needed. It had been almost a year since the warm summer air faded with the girl. Sabina would be eighteen this year, walking up the platform to shake hands with the principal, receive her diploma, and bid farewell to the school she would've been in for two years.

They hadn't talked to Edward for a while either. What was the father up to now? A lone journalist without the lights of his life guiding him. Would he be even more careless now? He had never been a man of public bias, after all, he wasn't backing down from any gossips, not even if publishing them meant a certain death.

Then, what did the man have to live for? A year ago, he would have throttled Edward for the way he had treated an underage child. But now, Edward was just like all of them. He was a family man, and the death of his wife had thrown him over the edge. Emotion was a horrible thing.

 _Horrible_. That word again. But would emotions be horrible if they brought tranquility? Would it be horrible if it was what they wanted? Alex had described his experience of his latest drowning 'horrible'. Would drowning be 'horrible' if it brought Alex eternal peace?

No. No, it wouldn't, and when the realization hit the ground running, it had him grinning like a fool the same time a relieved laugh escaped him. The parents around him glared daggers at his interruption and he grinned unapologetically back as the guest speaker cleared his throat and began to speak into the mic.

"Fourteen years ago, I was the same as all of you here, sitting in those ugly shade of blue robes, and awaiting our verdict under the burning sun. Four years in high school, and you can finally bid it goodbye. You'd think that after four years of long drone out speeches, cross-campus classes, hairy teachers, constantly-yapping friends, and _oh my god_ what's _wrong_ with the cafeteria food, I'd be running around like a crazy chicken celebrating my freedom. I for one, fourteen years ago, wasn't coping well with all the sudden changes…"

Not coping well with the sudden changes. Wolf supposed it was only high school that Alex's life could really relate to. Everything was a havoc; lies, frenemies, conflicts, etc. But not coping well, that was an understatement of the century no matter how hard he tried to label Alex with it. Wolf ducked his head before another chuckle could escape him. Fox jabbed him on the side, silently asking him what put him in such a good mood. It was only yesterday when he was still worrying over his head about Alex's sudden desire to attend the graduation. Fox didn't understand his relief. It was similar to remembering the tip-of-the-tongue word that he couldn't days ago: he finally understood. For the first time, he didn't have to wait for the spy to explode, for the abyss to overflow, to attend and understand the wounds.

Alex didn't just _slip_ , contrary to what the doctors told him, he had _thrown_ himself into the water after he woke up in the hospital with the stake out of his stomach. When the water first engulfed him, he was already gone. Too blinded by his grief to see the light. He was coping with neither Sabina nor Marquis's death, and perhaps when he was revived, his mind took the chance to wipe them clean—nothing to remember was nothing to wake up in nightmares over.

But Alex had said drowning was a _horrible_ thing. Fox might not have noticed Alex's confession, but Wolf did. Even if Alex hadn't fight back when the water tugged him away, he was fighting back now against the guilt and overwhelming grief instead of letting the black tides sweep him away again.

Perhaps he had underestimated the spy. Wolf had thought Alex would be stuck, unable to pull himself out of the hole unless Wolf were to lend a hand. The truth was, Alex didn't always need help getting out of binds, he needed help getting out _faster_ before the cuffs worn his wrist red. Although the chance of the young spy asking any of them for help was slimmer than that of him no longer attracting trouble like a magnet, Wolf _knew_ Alex now. And even if he had to break down that stubborn barrier to come to his aid, he would do it in a heartbeat.

"...We had one last class meeting, out on the field, and the teachers were like 'c'mon kids, cry your eyes out because this is really goodbye'. And I was like 'dude, what's wrong with you?' Like, I don't cry, alright? I'm not gonna bawl my eyes out because some teacher wants to take pictures of emotional kids and use it to promote happy monkey squeaky toys or something.

Well, I was certainly not the only one arching an eyebrow in skepticism, I promise you. But in the end, we were each engulfed in a hug from our teachers, and then we all broke down in tears. Every single one of us. Each of us had worn a different mask of indifference to the field that day, but behind every hardened mask is a fragility so bright that it brings together all those around and blinds those that seek to exploit it. And as we cried openly on the field like a bunch of dying cows, I realized the name of that vulnerability. Separation Anxiety."

The crowd laugh and the speaker's lips quirked up in his own amusement as his eyes scanned the crowd. Each person shone a different shade of blond, brown, black, but when the sun caressed the robes, they all lit up in the same glow of navy blue.

What was Alex's vulnerability? He was afraid of losses, of losing things, of losing people he loved, but then, when was someone not? It was stupid of Alex, of anyone really, to even _think_ he was alone in this world. Unlike those idiotic dystopian novels with the people all programmed with undying happiness, everyone in this world was suffering from one thing or another. And until the world got swept away by totalitarianism and brainwashed to mindless happy creatures of equality, Alex wasn't going to be the only one suffering from bereavement.

Sometimes Wolf woke up in the middle of the night, listening to the sounds of bombshells dwindling with his nightmares, and had the strongest urge to get up and run to every room to check on their occupant. Snake probably had it worst, being the medic whose face would be the last face some soldiers saw before the light in their eyes fade away with their last breath. But Wolf had to be the iron rod of the team, he had to hold them together. He couldn't afford to appear weak. If the beam were to fall, the whole roof would come down. And if he had to be an asshole about the whole emotional craps to keep the team from falling, he would do it.

But Alex wasn't Wolf. He didn't have to support anybody but himself, and that was enough to warrant vulnerabilities in front of those he called family. This wasn't high school, this was life. Of all the people he met and friends he made growing up, he remembered only two who stuck around but fade into the air after he joined the regiment, and vaguely of some jerk who had tried to dye Wolf's hair rainbow. Those brief fleeting friendships would change, but family had their back no matter what. And by family, Wolf didn't mean the one whose blood coursed in unison.

The audience's laughter drew Wolf's mind back to reality. The speaker took a long pregnant pause before his voice rang out again. "I'm thirty-four this year, eleven years till I'm officially eligible for having a midlife crisis. That's a long time, but I've got existential crisis tagging behind, baby! God, I think about life _all_ the time and I can't emphasize the word 'all' enough. I even had it highlighted and underlined on my speech paper.

I worry about a lot of things like, when's breakfast, when's lunch, where are my keys, and what in the world did my friend do to my shirt. But the one thing I worried about the most throughout my life so far, is my future.

Everybody wants to know their future—well, except some who wants to go to the past and, I dunno, find Abraham Lincoln's assassin and write a full-blown conspiracy theory paper on it for history class. The truth is, future really scares me, and sometimes when I lay awake counting sheep, all I can count is the number of ways my girlfriend might leave me. It's the uncertainty that pushed our fear, and because of this inability to control what's happening to us, we sometimes lash out on others or isolate ourselves believing that the fewer variables there are in our life, the more certain our future will be."

Was that what Alex had done when Sabina died? Refusing to confide in any of them because he was afraid of the future? Of how a single 'wrong' word could destroy the life and friendships he held dear to? Suddenly, the sense of foreboding settled back in his stomach. They might have dealt with Marquis, but Sabina was still a subject untouched. Even if Alex had deemed his death an event for the future, he had really yet to say a single word about his sister. What if choosing to live now was Alex's ploy to somehow die later after 'atoning' his guilt?

Alex's eyes were fixed on the speaker's when Wolf angled his gaze to the spy and didn't seem to have noticed the quick glance.

"One day, I jumped out of my bed, I went to my girl cooking omelets, kissed her on the top of her head, and told her that I don't want to lose her. It was honestly one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever said to anyone, but god, it felt _really_ good. You know what she said? She asked me if I was drinking in the bed at four in the morning because I sounded like a drunkard. Then she said if I can get the plates out for breakfast, she'd dance with me.

I was like, dance? She was like, yeah, for our wedding. And oh man, I haven't proposed to her yet. The ring was still in my drawer. Yeah, I know right. _That girl_ , _man_. As it turned out, she found the ring when she was doing laundry. A word of advice? Don't ever use the sock drawer to hide anything. Now we've been married for seven years and my little baby girl has made her fourth friend now. And every time I see her bringing that one boy over, I wiggle my eyebrows at my wife. That boy's a keeper, I tell you."

The speaker's humorous tone rang like warm summer wind across the crowd, and it drew the expected reaction from the awaiting crowd catching his every word. Wolf liked the man, and he could almost see the humor on Alex. But they were different kinds of humor. Humor was Alex's shield, but it was a toy easy to be manipulated by the man. However, Wolf could hear the hardship in the man's tone. Perhaps humor had once been a shield to him too, but since then he had learned to control and contort it to his will: whether it be feather or metal.

"I know all of your parents have some degree of expectation for you, whether it be getting into the whole Stanford, Oxford, whatever-ford, good colleges or having a certain job occupation when you grow up. But you know what, I was that Jack of all trade, master of none, back in high school, yet here I am, standing here giving you a nice lecture about life. High school doesn't define who you are, in fact, nothing does. I didn't know how to play the trumpet when I was in high school, but now I can play beautifully. My neighbors love it so much that they personally came to visit us and told us to lower the volume because they're afraid they're gonna die from the absolute beauty of my skill.

In my opinion, the truth is the colleges don't care about your grades more than they care about your passion. They don't need robots who know everything but really nothing at all. They needed _people_ who make mistakes, who can make a difference, who is passionate about what they do, who dares to step into the undiscovered land, and who isn't afraid to dream big. And I was very lucky to have my wife beside me the whole way when I told my father no thank you, I don't want to be a programmer. I don't want to live in an office befriending lines after lines of code."

The crowd was silent, and perhaps for the first time for longer than five sentences, the man's face was settled in pensive fixation as he scanned the faces.

"He asked me what I want to do, and I told him I didn't know. But deep inside, I knew. I wanted to be in law enforcement. I want to catch bad guys. I want to be someone's six, to have their back. I want to go home feeling good about what I did. But I didn't tell my father that because I was afraid. I feel like I couldn't trust him to support me, and that was a really scary thought. I didn't tell anyone about what I want to be because I was just so afraid of not being good enough. That was when I learned my insecurity. I had no one that I trust.

Until my girlfriend, two months into our relationship, promptly told me to suck it up and go out into the world and do what I want to do. She didn't even know what I wanted to do, she just knew. And that's when I found the first person that I feel like I can talk to as a person.

You see, what I needed in life was just someone I can talk to, that somebody who really defines what family is. She's my beacon, and I became hers too. This world is too big to solo it, and if you can't find a group to fight the world with, shrink your battle. Fight for somebody else, fight for their world, fight for their wishes, and that's a whole lot more satisfying than standing still in your world, giving up in your fight against the rest of the world."

Wolf exhaled softly. But humans weren't made for others. They were made for themselves. They would live the sword to defend themselves, but their instinct wasn't programmed for others. Was worrying about others really more meaningful? Was being a fixer the purpose of life? People seemed to constantly forget that fixers, especially fixers, needed fixing too. But then, what was the meaning of life?

Perhaps it was like a survival game: they had to fight against the rest of the world. It was always easier in groups because they all had only one life—they didn't have cheats and they didn't have infinite many chances to perfect their skills. Everyone began as their own person until they could the group they belonged in. And some didn't even know there were groups, to begin with, because life had no rules besides death.

When they came back from San Francisco, the first thing Eagle did was to cram them around and on the sofa in the living room and snapped a couple of pictures that he moved onto his computer.

"You will see" was his only reply when they asked what the hell he wanted with the pictures.

Nothing changed much in the house. Morning, noon, night, everything fell back into a comfortable routine hyped by the occasional suggestions each member offered to brighten their day. Mrs. Jones gave Alex a well-deserved break of three months that none of K-Unit thought was really long and sincere enough. Though it was a great improvement from Blunt's era years ago.

Everything was about as peaceful and good as it could get.

Until five days later Alex disappeared in the middle of the night.

The first thought that ran across Wolf's panicking mind was that he thought Alex had been getting better.

When they woke up that the morning, they had found the stove cold, the sofa untouched, and Alex's bed devoid of life. Alex's car was parked outside and his bike in the garage where a thin sheet of dust had already begun to claim ownership of the vehicle.

It was as if the wind had whisked him away from the slightly ajar window in his bedroom. Why didn't Alex tell them?

Wolf was panicking, and the rest of K-Unit could see it on his features and in his actions. He had called Alex fifteen times since morning, and each time it went straight to voicemail. Alex didn't set up a personal message, and the smooth uncaring voice of the woman sent shards of irritation throughout his body. It was Fox's firm grip on his wrist that stopped him from chucking the piece of useless plastic across the room.

Every time before when Alex did his disappearing act, Wolf could sort of piece two and two together to form half the picture to give him reassurance. But this time, he couldn't even get half a piece from the murky water. Was it Sabina again? Or was it Marquis? He thought they were past that, or at least enough that even if Alex was still reluctant to talk to them about, he wasn't going to attempt anything rash. Was it somebody else? Something else? Was it something K-Unit said?

The uncertainty pushed fear into his mind and he couldn't think straight. Every time he tried to start at the beginning, doubts and what-ifs shot through the thin attempts. It rocked his world, and it had been sixteen hours. It had _only_ been sixteen hours. He thought time would be painfully slow, but it went by seconds by seconds. He was looking at the clock, listening to each tick and each tock even as the buzzing and the voices in his mind whispered loud enough to shake the world.

Fox made Wolf sit down as he made the call to someone named Smithers, asking them to track down Alex's phone. But before either of them made their next move, the ringing of Wolf's phone broke through Eagle's pacing in the living room. He dove to where it lay discarded on the sofa, scrambling to pick up.

Who else could it be?

"Alex?" His voice cracked.

"No, it's Edward. Edward Pleasure."

"Oh." The crestfallen feeling sent his heart to the pit of hell, nearly sending the phone dropping from his grip. "Oh. Edward. Hey, now…now's not a good time. I'll call you ba—"

"Alex's okay." The man cut him off before Wolf could cut the phone call. "Alex's here, with me, at the cemetery. He's visiting Sabina, and I think he's been here for at least an hour."

"Alex is in…San Francisco?"

"Yes, he is. He said he took a taxi from home and got on a plane, and he didn't tell anyone. I called as soon as he told me that. You're probably worried."

Worried? Ha. What an utter big fat ugly _fucking bloody_ _understatement_.

"Put him on. Put Alex on the phone."

The phone picked up the sound of wind and the thwacks of fumbling before it settled in another's hand. "Wolf."

"Get your ass back home. Don't make me waste money on a plane ticket to San Francisco."

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Surprisingly, Alex laughed. "I was about to leave anyway. I'll see you guys...tomorrow? Well, it's still morning here in, so…yeah, you know what, never mind. I can't do the math. 14 hours flight, I'll be there."

No explanations. No apologies. No 'sorry I almost gave you a heart attack'. No 'I'm sorry I forgot to leave a note'. No 'I'm sorry I never think about my actions and the consequences'. None. Zilch. Nada. But before Wolf could shoot back at the ungrateful spy, Alex ended the call. After hearing too many times the monotonous voice of the woman apologizing on behalf of the spy, the dull tones was music to his ears. The buzzing in his mind was dying down in a last dying crackling of fire and ashes, finally reassured that all of his what-ifs and doubts were bogus lies.

Alex got home at seven in the morning the next day, and he wasn't alone. "I invited Edward."

The spy looked better, Wolf realized. And it wasn't just the haircut that Alex had managed to get during the short trip. Gone was the length and curls that used to touch the corner of his eyes and in its place was a neat trim on the side and the back, the hair on the top of his head curled up into the air by the forehead and perfectly gelled in place. Speckles by speckles, the lights had returned to his brown orbs, and his lips quirked up in a small smile at K-Unit's reaction.

"What happened to your hair?" Fox arched an eyebrow as he reached over and poked the new sharp look gingerly.

"I'm going to college next semester." The young spy pushed past them as he dropped the bomb. "Anyway, is anyone hungry? Because I, for one, am _starving._ What's for breakfast?"

"College? What do you mean college?" A confused but not _confused_ Fox followed Alex into the kitchen. Snake and Eagle ushered the adoptive father along, leaving Wolf the duty to close the door.

The door clicked in place, and so did Wolf's closure. Something fell into place.

This was it, he realized as his hands slowly unclasped from the metallic handle.

This was his closure, and he had been wrong. He thought he would find his closure through Alex's acceptance of Sabina's death. But that wasn't it, because it had never really been about Alex or Sabina. It had always been Wolf himself. Alex's acceptance might have been the closure to the subplots of the wild ride, but ever since he had inserted himself into Alex's life to battle the shadow that troubled the young spy, he had been searching for a sense of closure to his question.

Was he 'right' to step into Alex's life?

Watching Alex's face lit up and hearing his laughter all the way from the kitchen island, Wolf had found that he didn't need an answer. It was everything he needed, right or wrong be damned.

And that was the closure he had sought for sleepless months.

"Tea for your thought?" Alex's sarcastic tilt had him turning. His cup of the warm beverage was pressed into his unsuspecting hand.

"How 'bout next time you decide to run away from home, you leave a note?"

"That defeats the whole purpose of running away from home." The young spy took a sip of his drink as he followed Wolf's example to lean against the door.

Slowly, lights began to cascade into the room as gentle wind breezes sent the curtains over the ajar windows fluttering in the warm summer air. Dust particles fluttered like morning fireflies as they rose and fell like ashes and snow. They stayed like that for a long moment, listening to the conversation bits that float through the air, and feeling the dying heat escape from the cup in their hands.

"You asked me if I've ever considered quitting 6," Alex finally spoke.

"I did?"

"Yeah, about half a year after you guys waltzed into my house and told me you guys need a place to temporarily stay at."

Wolf snorted. "Right." That seemed like such a long time ago when all he had to worry about was their rendezvous location and missions.

"And I told you I've never considered it because I felt like it was part of me. Well, I've been thinking about it ever since, and yesterday when I visited Sabina, I think I found my answer."

"Lemme guess, college."

Alex chuckled and ducked his head. "Yeah, sorta. 6 is something my parents, and my uncle, and the deputy and heads chose for me. It's not my choice, and I'm tired of not being able to take control of my life. I don't want to be swept away anymore. I know I will never be able to part from 6 completely, because the truth is, I do enjoy it. The thing between trouble and me is that we find each other, no matter where I go. So, well, if you can't beat them, join them."

"So you would still be in this whole espionage mess?"

"Part-time, I need a job. Mrs. Jones better pay me extra for this. But this isn't what I really want to talk about. I…" Alex sighed. "I know I'm irrational, rash, heart before head, and naive, and you all had to deal with me and my troubles. Especially you, Wolf. You never signed up for it, but you were, you were always there. I think you've seen my best and worst side, and I don't think I could've done anything just by myself."

Alex swallowed, his eyes glancing away in embarrassment and Wolf had to hold back a snort. Alex hadn't changed as much when it came to cringeworthy proclamations.

"So, I just wanted to say thank you. Really. Thank you for always being there…Being _here_."

Wolf's lips quirked up. "I didn't have a choice."

Then they let the comforting silence seep back into the room.

Eagle broke the moment by peeking his head past the wall with a camera and whispered. "Hug it out, guys. Hug it out."

Two days later, a delivery guy knocked on their door to drop off a box the size of a drawer. Eagle was quick to dart to the door to take the package, pushing past a confused Alex who knew he didn't order anything. "Thanks for the delivery, man."

With ease and precision of a soldier, Eagle cleared the tape and pulled aside the straps before spreading out the photos and items in the box. Except Eagle, the rest of them groaned as they took a closer look.

"See, I told you you'll see," Eagle said as he handed each of them _that_ glossy photo of the five of them squeezed uncomfortably on the couch looking at the camera. "It's a family portrait thing. So one day, when you're like two hundred years old, you can look at this photo and say, hey, isn't that good ol' Eagle and my buddies?"

Then he started handing out the mugs. "I know this joke is cliche, but hey, look at all these beautiful _mug_ shots. Mug, mugshot, _ha_. Get it?"

Their resonating resignation was in unison. Then Alex laughed, and without reason, they all joined in.

Their relationship was still, in one word, rocky—but that was just the way it was supposed to be.

* * *

FIN

* * *

A.N.: It's been a really fun ride, guys!


End file.
